Posts Tagged ‘Religion and Spirituality’

Get Connected

July 14th, 2010
Get Connected

Image by bdentzy via Flickr

I wonder if part of the reason we – the Church – don’t share our faith more is because we’re not connected.  I don’t mean that we don’t have cell phones and don’t check our email every 8.36 seconds.  I mean that our lives aren’t connected.

Sure, we think we’re connected.  We share information about our lives.  But we don’t share our lives.

We share pictures and thoughts and quotes.  But we don’t get in the car.  We don’t go to concerts with friends.  We don’t hang out at the park.  At least not like we used to.

Instead, we hole up in our homes – our fortresses of solitude – where we have information and entertainment piped in.  Where we nuke our TV dinners and write blogs in the middle of the night (“like I’m doing now”, types Bryan ruefully).

A Personal Proverb

This is one I made up.  You can’t have fondue on Facebook.

You just can’t.

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The Gospel of Sin Management

July 13th, 2010
Stop sign plus silhouette

Image via Wikipedia

One of the things I so love about the Church – the body of Christ – is that our God speaks to us through our brothers and sisters.  God often uses our relationships to make us think.  To speak a rebuke or to extend grace.  Or just to help us understand him better.

That happened to me yesterday.  I was deeply troubled about something I read in a report by the Barna Group and wrote a post about it.  In short, I was troubled because it seems that we – the Church – are not living and sharing our faith like we used to.  Man, that still bothers me.

Widening My Perspective

And I think I outlined a few good reasons this might be.  But then Steve Grossman (@stevegrossman), a friend of mine, just totally blew the lid off of my perspective as he responded back to me in a comment.

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We’re Not Telling People About Jesus

July 12th, 2010
Discussion on the Merits of Bows vs. Knots

Image by chefranden via Flickr

Can you believe that we’re not telling people about Jesus?  At least not like we (the Church) used to.  I know that I was surprised and saddened as I learned about this from a recent Barna Report.

If you read the report, you’ll find that it was focused specifically on teens.  And you might think that gives us “adults” a pass on this.  After all, we’re not under the microscope.  That’s just not right.

We are under the microscope.  Sure, teens are influenced heavily by our culture.  But they’re also influenced by family, peer groups, and subculture.  If our teens are failing to live their faith, it’s our fault.  We have failed.  And we need God’s help to fix it.

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Find God’s Best in the Little Things

July 10th, 2010
2007 05 07 113
Image by .erin. via Flickr

If we’ll keep our eyes and hearts open, we’ll always find God‘s very best for us right now.  But sometimes I think we miss what God has for us now because we’re holding out for something big.  Yet we are surrounded all of the time by blessing if we’ll just recognize who God is and what he does for us.

A Schema

In many ways, our life of faith is like wading in the ocean.  If we consider the ocean for a minute, we find many parallels to life and faith.

For example, the ocean reminds us of our utter frailty because of its great power.  It speaks to us of seasons (or tides).  It’s an image of being surrounded and supported and occasionally overcome.  We can understand our lives saturated by the awesome presence of God.  We can understand ourselves as surrounded by God and wading in blessing.  Is it any wonder that Jesus told us to “consider the lilies” (Luke 12:27)?!

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Missing God’s Very Best Because of Worry

July 7th, 2010
How long must this go on (strobes)
Image by Chromewavesdotorg via Flickr

I wonder how often I miss God’s very best for me because I’m worried.

  • Worried about what other people might think of me.
  • Worried about how I should look like a better Christian.
  • Worried about whether I’m living my life faithfully.
  • Worried about what I should write in this blog.
  • Worried about doing my very best.

Of course, not all of these are bad.  The problem is more of whether I take my worries to God.  Or whether my worries push God to the edges of my life.

How about you?

What do you worry about?
How do you maintain your perspective?

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Beautiful Things

July 5th, 2010

Sometimes our desire to build our relationship with God needs to be tempered.  It’s good and important to do the things that help us to be spiritually effective.  To turn from evil and embrace good.  To embrace God.

We most certainly ought to offer God our very best.  But sometimes we forget the most important part of our relationship with God.  God.

The very foundation of our relationship with God is God.  He is the source of our hope.  The source of our joy.  It is God who works in us as he wills to do his good pleasure (Philippians 2:12-13).

It is God alone who works in us.  God makes us beautiful.  God makes us whole.

Take joy in that.  Receive hope and energy from the Holy Spirit when you feel to drained to go on.  Persevere!

Know that God is able to do all that he wills!

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Happy Freedom Day

July 4th, 2010

Today, those of us in the US are celebrating Independence Day.  The marker of the beginning of our great nation.  But there is a greater day in history.  A day that marks true freedom, though not independence.

True freedom is never independence from God.  Rather, it is total faith in and dependence on God.

As we go through this weekend celebrating freedom, let’s not forget the source of true freedom and peace.  May we always live in gratitude of what God has done and the high cost that was paid for our freedom.  And may we always live in the hope of true peace, eternal life, and freedom.

And may God bless us, every one.

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God Saves the Best for Now

July 3rd, 2010
"Doubt isn't the opposite of faith; it is...
Image by bdentzy via Flickr

Sometimes God interrupts our lives.  Sometimes when it seems like everything is going well and sometimes when everything seems to be going poorly.  It’s at those moments that we are reminded that God has the very best for us.  At those moments we realize that God saves the best for now.

That is exactly what happened when Jesus attended a wedding at Cana (John 2:1-11).

Wedding at Cana

You probably already know this story.

Jesus and his disciples were attending a wedding where the wine ran out before the party did.  Jesus’s mother asked that he intervene and he did – turning water into wine.  When the servants took a little of the wine to the one who was in charge of the banquet, he was so impressed that he remarked to the bridegroom, “Everyone brings out the choice wine first and then the cheaper wine after the guests have had too much to drink; but you have saved the best till now.” (John 2:10 – emphasis added)

The passage says “saved the best till now,” not “saved the best for last.”

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The Very Best

June 30th, 2010
22nd place ribbon for a race

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There’s a flip side to when we don’t settle.  We get the very best.

Think about it for a moment.  If we don’t take “second best” or maybe even “fifth best,” we get the very best.  Every time.  It’s like math – it just works out that way.

We fill our lives with “second best”

Any time we start trying to fill our lives, we end up getting short-changed.  Any time we grasp or pursue or try to take for ourselves, we lose out.  It’s just how it is because only God has the very best for us.

If we want God’s best, we need to take a look at our lives and see if we’re filling them with things other than God.  Other than his plans.  Ask ourselves, “Are we leaving space for God to move.”

Because if we’re not, we can’t have the very best.  We’re full of all the other stuff.

God has the very best for you.

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Don’t Settle

June 29th, 2010
Dirty water spilling out of a large glass carb...

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Sometimes when things don’t work out or when our way seems confusing, it can be tempting to take matters into our own hands.  To say (to ourselves), “God’s forgotten me,” or, “I guess this is the best I can get,” or, “The Lord helps those who help themselves.”  In short, it can be tempting to settle – to take less than what God has for us.

Don’t Settle

It’s not worth it.  God’s plan and provision for our lives is always worth the wait.  It’s always good.  It’s always better.

A Proverb

A few years ago I was going through a dry patch in relationships.  I’d just gotten out of one destructive relationship and I was looking around to find pretty much anything I could.  Thank God my mother had the wisdom to coin a proverb for me.

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