Will Power

I know someone who is getting married this summer, and along with most brides-to-be, she is working on losing weight.  Now she’s already pretty skinny anyway, but she wants to perfect on her wedding day, and rightfully so.  What is funny to me is how much her will power has improved the closer she gets to the wedding day.  She already ate healthy but would sneak in some candy here and there in the past.  Now, no candy.  No coffee.  No extra anything in or on anything she eats or drinks. 

What struck me the other day is the fact that many of us do the exact same thing in other parts of our lives.  If we really want something, no matter what it is, we can find a way to make sure it happens.  Like my bride-to-be friend we can eat healthy and exercise more than ever if we want to fit into something for a special occasion.  We all of a sudden can find the money to get that one thing we just have to have when normally we wouldn’t have it at all.  And we can make time in our busy schedules for something that we really want to do.  But, when those things are not important to us then there just isn’t any way we can do any of those things. 

How often do you treat your spiritual life the same way?  When you want something from God is it possible to all of a sudden find more time to pray?  Maybe things have been bad in your life so you start going to church or a Bible study.  Then once you get what you want, or at least it becomes less important, those things you were doing become things of the past.  The motivation is now gone, and so you go back to how things use to be. 

What would your life look like if you were always willing to live for God 100% each and every day, instead of giving 60% some times, other times 70%, and only sometimes 100%?  Would you see more blessings in your life?  Would you be closer to God?  It’s time to open your eyes and evaluate how you live your life and start living for Him completely each and every day instead of just when you need something from Him.  If you do, just watch and see what kind of blessings you receive.  

WWJB

That is right.  What would Jesus blog?  I’ve been writing this blog for quite some time now, and I’d never given that a thought until just the other day. 

There are so many things going on in the world, and He has so much to tell us about, right?  So what would Jesus blog about?  Would He just blog, or maybe He’d have a radio or TV show in order to help get His message out?   Would He pastor a church of His own, or would He visit them all?  Would Jesus travel all over the world to pass along His message, or would He only stay in a big city like New York and expect the power of the media to do the work for Him?    Maybe he’d have his own network – JTV!

Well, in spite of all the questions I actually think I have the answer.  You see, Jesus has us out in the world already passing along the message.  He has pastors in churches all over the world doing the work.  Yet, we still have problems getting the message out, and so many others are still untouched.  Maybe that is because some of us aren’t doing our part?  Or maybe we’re out there trying, but others aren’t seeing Jesus in our lives?

So, no matter what Jesus would or would not blog, the message for sure will be the same.  The only way to Heaven is through Jesus, and that all of our sins will be forgiven when we gain that relationship with Him.  Not only should we want that relationship for ourselves, but for others as well.  

I Hate It When My Neighbors Mow

I don’t know about you but I’m not a huge fan of mowing my lawn.  If you’ve been reading this blog long enough you know that it becomes a topic around this time almost every year.  I actually enjoy being outside and even doing some yard work; however, it seems like that darn lawn always looks horrible when I don’t have time to do anything about it.  Then to make matters worse, the neighbors on both sides of our house mow their lawns and now ours looks the worst of the three.  We can’t have that now, can we?  Of course not, so off I go to mow the lawn because I don’t have any choice, right?

So today I was thinking more about that lawn mowing and the comparison of our lawns in a different context.  (Go figure with me, right?)  What if those lawns were our spiritual lives instead. When they aren’t kept up, weeds will start to grow, and after enough time it’ll start to look pretty bad.  Then to make matters worse, the people around us start to clean up their spiritual lives and are doing better on the upkeep.  They start getting rid of the weeds when they first start to sprout instead of letting them go like I have.  Then it gets worse, as another person around us does the same, and now we look horrible in a spiritual context. 

You see, sometimes when we’re just focused on ourselves we don’t really see all the weeds in our spiritual lives .  We think we can just take it easy for a bit and not get to the upkeep that needs to be continually done on our spiritual lawns.  No need for fertilizer (examples:  prayer, Bible study) to be applied because we don’t think it looks that bad.  Those weeds don’t look so bad, so no need to apply any of that weed and feed (confession and rejection of sin and sinful influences) either, right?  Oh and those sticks and stuff (little habitual sins) sitting on the line are just fine as long as we don’t mow, right?

  

Instead of working hard on that lawn for a while then taking it easy for a bit only to go back to the hard work, why not be the person in the neighborhood who always has the nice lawn.  How do you do that, you ask.  First off, you have to have a firm foundation.  Start right away with feeding the lawn with things that will make it healthy.  Read your Bible and pray.  Then keep an eye on those around you and not only keep up your lawn, but help others keep theirs alive and vibrant as well.  Bible studies, accountability partners, attending church, and so much more are examples of how we can all work together to make the spiritual neighborhoods we live in to be healthy across the board. 

Keep in mind that from time to time, no matter how much work you put in a weed or two will probably show up in your lawn.  It’s how we react to those weeds that shows how strong we really are.  So, although I hate it when my neighbors mow in the real world, I don’t mind at all when it comes to the spiritual lawn I have…as it keeps me on my toes and aware when my lawn needs work.  I hope from now on it does for you as well.

Matter of Perspective

So a little over a week ago I had the opportunity to attend a Cleveland Cavaliers game as a “guest of the Cavaliers.”  This meant that I had access to pretty much everything there at the Q minus the locker rooms.  It really was a lot of fun and I got to see and do things that most people will never get to do in their lifetimes.  This privilege was mine through my brother and his friend Daryl who is in sports radio in the Cleveland area.  Daryl was working the game and we tagged along and watch the game from the media area with him.

What really struck me throughout the entire experience was how different the reactions of my and my brother's reactions were to those of our host.  Daryl has been to so many games in all the different sports in his 15 years covering the Cleveland teams that it’s become old hat to him to be at the games.  The access to the players that he and his fellow media members have, the places he gets to go in the different venues are all just normal to him now.  To my brother and me they were new experiences, and frankly we didn’t know what kind of boundaries we really had, other than the one thing noted on the tags around our necks – “No Locker Room Access.”

I think this can also be applied to us in our Christian walks.  After a while we get used to seeing the things that God will do and it can become “old hat” to us.  It’s not that we don’t appreciate the access that we have to God, but instead we don’t really grasp how much it can mean to others to have that same access to Him.  When we first accepted the fact that Jesus died for our sins we were enthralled with all that He was doing in our lives.  It’s like our eyes were opened for the first time.  As time went on that newness went away and we were still appreciative of all that He was doing, but it didn’t have the same sparkle when we viewed it.

Today I just want to impress upon everyone that this life that we’re leading with Jesus is a matter of perspective.  To those who don’t have Him in their lives they really wonder what it would be like, and some are even afraid of what it would be like to walk alongside of Jesus.  When they finally do make their decision for Him they have wide-open eyes.  They have that “new car smell” and love having it.  Sure, the newness will wear off and will become accustomed to their new life.  We need to make sure that their becoming accustomed to their new life doesn’t eventually turn into complacency.  Instead we all need to keep growing in our spiritual walk.

It's Just A Number

So this past weekend I turned 35.  Yeah, it’s not that high of a number, and to me it really doesn’t mean that much.  Some of the earlier numbers have had more meaning.  16 is when you get to drive, 18 vote, and 21 you get to drink.  All of those were good numbers for me, including many in between.  Yet, when 30 came around I got depressed.  I don’t know why, and it didn’t last long, but that one hit me hard.  I was wondering if 35 would be the same way but it wasn’t, thankfully.  Instead I had a great weekend with loved ones doing things I don’t get to do very often.  It wasn’t even really a speed bump in my life, just another special day instead.

I think the reason that my birthday didn’t bug me this time around is because I have a stronger walk with God than I did in the past.  I’ve come to realize that a birthday is another day on the calendar.  That with each year that I gain on this planet, it’s just more experience that He’s giving me in order to reach others for Him.  It’s that perspective I’ve taken into this new year of my life.  I realize, as I wrote a few weeks ago, that this is not where I belong and that I’m here for His purpose. 

That view on life makes every day worth living for me, how about you?  

Determination

This past weekend I was assistant coaching my oldest son’s sixth grade basketball team in a tournament that was going to end our season.  We’d have a rough season overall, only winning our first game of the year and none since then.  As coaches we’d felt that we had a chance in many of the games, but there was a hurdle that the team just couldn’t get past, something we couldn’t figure out ourselves.

So we go into the round robin part of the tournament, where we were going to play the other three teams in our side of the bracket.  Our first opponent is a team from our league who had beat us by over 20 points in both games that we’d played them previously.  The boys started out pretty well, but we found ourselves down at halftime.  We made some adjustments, but that didn’t seem to help in the end and we lost that first game.  Then the second game we played a team that we hadn’t played previously, and although we as coaches thought we could win, we got ourselves in a hole and we saw that familiar look on the boy’s faces – defeat.  That look was a premonition as it ended up that we lost to them as well. 

So at the end of the first day we were 0-2, with one more game to play.  The head coach wasn’t gentle with the boys after the first game, saying pretty much exactly how I felt as well.  We both knew that the boys had all the talent in the world, but they weren’t handling adversity well and we didn’t know if they had the will to win.  It was pretty much laid out that if they weren’t going to be there to win, then to not come back on Sunday to play. 

Well, it was Sunday’s game time, and all of the boys were there.  It seemed like they were different people when they showed up.  They looked determined to win this game, and they were going to do what it took to get a victory.  They had their ups and downs throughout the game, with the lead going back and forth between the two teams.  Then a big change occurred.  The boys believed they could win the game.  They weren’t going to let anyone take this victory from them, and eventually with that determination came something that they really needed…a victory.  They finished the season at something like 2-10, but the fact that their hard work paid off seemed to give them the feeling that the season was a success.

I tell you this story from the weekend because I think this mirrors the spiritual lives that Christians live.  We work hard at the beginning and get an early victory in our lives, be it turning from a sin that has been with us for years or many other victories that would can obtain in Christ.  The problem with that early victory is that often times that gets the enemy's attention and then we have to deal with adversity.  Often times that tests our character, and those hard times can lead us to feeling defeated and possibly even to giving up on the one gift that we’ve all been given in our lives that means the most:  salvation.  But, God is there coaching us and telling us to show up and get back out there and finish the game.  He doesn’t want us to quit.  He wants us to go out there and keep scraping and clawing our way to the top, knowing full well that the Holy Spirit will be there with us throughout our battles.  God never promised that our lives would be easy when we accepted Jesus into our lives.  He never said that the enemy wouldn’t attack, in fact it’s written that the exact opposite would happen.  Our goal, as Christians, should be to keep gaining victories no matter how hard we have to work.  We can’t give up, and being a Christian and living your life for Him isn’t for wimps.   

Just as this sixth grade team did this weekend, they fought through the adversity with the determination to reach their goal of getting a victory.  Now, we as Christians are called to do the same.  Go out and get victory after victory for Christ.  Go out determined not to let the enemy stop you from getting to your goals, no matter what is thrown in the way.

Where I Belong

If you’ve been reading this blog for a while now, then you know one thing about me:  Music is how I really connect with God.  There are points in my life where a certain song really gets me in tune with God and allows Him to speak into my life in ways that no words on a page could ever do. 

Well, recently another song has been reaching me in that way.  I had my first real encounter with this song at Winter Jam in Columbus when the band Building 429 sang it along with 20,000 other people in attendance.  The song:  "Where I Belong". 

What hit me the most is the chorus of this song.  The fact that all 20,000+ people in attendance were singing this all at the same time was just huge to me.  I felt His presence at that moment.  Just read the words here:

All I know is I'm not home yet 
This is not where I belong 
Take this world and give me Jesus 
This is not where I belong

Up to that moment, I don’t think I’d ever thought of my life here on Earth in that.  Since I became a believer in Christ I’ve known that the world wasn’t my home.  But the way this was sung along with an arena full of people really took it to another level.  This world is just a stopping place on our journey to Heaven.  The fact that this isn’t my home makes it easy to give up.   I’m willing to give up everything I have for Jesus.  Are you?

Watch and listen to the song on YouTube.  The words are there on this version so you can get the full effect of the song….well, as full as it gets without being in a room full of other believers singing this out with all their hearts, minds, and souls along with you!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lOtsB4O1p3o