Words......

What do wars, speeches, fights, proposals, and prayers all have in common?  All of them were conceptualized and created in a large part by someone, somewhere, letting words escape their mouth.  Early in my marriage to my beautiful wife I thought it would be a great idea to embrace her with my idea of what was involved with babysitting or watching children.  I told her that watching children was easy because you just sit there and let them play.  Let's just say I still have not lived that one down!

It's amazing what words from our tongues have the ability to do.  Words have started wars, and words have also saved thousands.  Even now I get caught up letting my tongue loose and taking my chances at work and at home.  Let's just say that I have struck out more than a few times.  I have talked my way to the couch at night, and I have also talked my way into awards and promotions.  We are our own worst enemies.  God gives us that free will to say what we will.  Though most of us choose poorly more times than not.  This is why it is so important to lean on God for our inspiration and not the ways of the world.  Imagine all the times you have ever spoken out of anger or let emotions dictate the words that roll off your tongue.  How many people have we hurt to fulfill our own selfish ambitions and feelings?  The book of James gives us a good idea how our words can determine who we are.
James 3: versus 3-6
³ When we put bits into the mouths of horses to make them obey us, we can turn the whole animal. ⁴ Or take ships as an example. Although they are so large and are driven by strong winds, they are steered by a very small rudder wherever the pilot wants to go. ⁵ Likewise, the tongue is a small part of the body, but it makes great boasts. Consider what a great forest is set on fire by a small spark. ⁶ The tongue also is a fire, a world of evil among the parts of the body. It corrupts the whole body, sets the whole course of one’s life on fire, and is itself set on fire by hell.

James 4

Submit Yourselves to God

 ¹ What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you? ² You desire but do not have, so you kill. You covet but you cannot get what you want, so you quarrel and fight. You do not have because you do not ask God. ³ When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.

Slow

James 1:19-21
¹⁹ My dear brothers and sisters, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, ²⁰ because human anger does not produce the righteousness that God desires. ²¹ Therefore, get rid of all moral filth and the evil that is so prevalent and humbly accept the word planted in you, which can save you.

I read this verse on facebook this morning.  It was pretty incredible to hear those words because there are times I let stress and frustration take over my thoughts and responses to certain situations.  Notice the only thing that is "quick" in these verses is the listening part.  All I need is to open an ear and take in every word.  I totally fit the stigma of the guy that wants to be the "problem solver" when all that is really needed is to just be there.

I can remember a time in high school when I had all the answers and I ran at the mouth way too much.  One night after a church Christmas performance I was being my typical self and I thought I would open my mouth and fire back at another guy after he hurt my pride.  Well, I just happen to mention his Mom in a vulgar manner and I found myself with a face full of fist.  Did I deserve it, YES!  I am thankful for experiences like this, no matter how painful.  As humans we are designed to display outward displays of emotion, but it's not a golden ticket to take the filter from our mouths or show some sort of patience and due diligence.  "Slow" is the word of the day.......embrace it. 

Success

I can dream of many things in this world that I would love to be successful at, however, my selfish ambitions would only serve my desires first.  Lately I find myself wandering to places in my mind where material things mark my wins and losses in life.  Maybe if I could just score the next big toy, or possession then I could be happy? 

It's not unfortunate that life truly doesn't work that way.  My success is based upon my relationship with God.  Where will I go when "that" day comes, heaven, or downstairs.  I want so much to follow God, yet my decisions are not speaking toward that choice.  I see all of these televangelists speaking toward success and positive attitudes.  They preach how we have to be happy in our lives in order to truly enjoy what God wants for us all.  I will never know everything in life, and frankly I do not want to.  If at the end of the day I can truly say that I am a child of God then my success has been earned by Him, not me.

The Sermon on the Mount: Matthew 5
³ “Blessed are the poor in spirit,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
⁴ Blessed are those who mourn,
for they will be comforted.
⁵ Blessed are the meek,
for they will inherit the earth.
⁶ Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,
for they will be filled.
⁷ Blessed are the merciful,
for they will be shown mercy.
⁸ Blessed are the pure in heart,
for they will see God.
⁹ Blessed are the peacemakers,
for they will be called children of God.
¹⁰ Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Commitment

Most often it seems that commitment is pretty easy to come by these days.  Let's break that down though; initial commitment is pretty easy to come by, sustained commitment is not.  When the word commitment is brought up in many circles it immediately brings to mind relationships, and how the word correlates to them.  I am talking about commitment on a much grander scale though.  Commitment is a bond created by one person which is intended toward a cause, objective, and/or living thing. 

Sustained commitment toward God, for instance, is the toughest pursuit this life has to offer.  With so many distractions our vision becomes blurred, our heads turn from that which should truly be our focus.  I allow my focus to skew many times.  You name it and I have faltered in some type of way throughout this life.  My relationship with God is always a work in progress.  The same can also be said for commitments/relationships with my wife, friends, family and so on.  One thing is very true though, lately I have pulled away to live life on my own terms.  Getting back to God is my current mission, the sustained commitment will be the challenge.

There's no way you can get into heaven on someone else's ticket. You have to make your own arrangements with God - on His terms. Romans 14:12, our word for today from the Word of God says, "Each of us will give an account of himself to God." You won't be standing before God with your Christian husband or your Christian wife--your Christian parents --your son or daughter who's in Christian work--your Christian friends--the folks from church. Judgment Day will be you and God. And you won't be allowed in on someone else's ticket.   -Ron Hutchcraft

Providence

There are some things about God that are hard to understand.  Although God is all-powerful some people wonder why millions starve, get sick, are raped and/or abused.  Some think God created everything and made it so well that everything is self sustaining, and afterward He simply sat back and watched life play out ever since.  Some even say that God set up the elements necessary for evolution and let it go from there, but that He has had no direct influence or activity in life or the universe since.  Others are inclined to think God is involved, but not as a provider, but rather as a disciplinarian.  Those who die of an untimely death or horrible disease somehow deserve it?!

Clearly God is involved in our lives and even the world.  Most of what He does for us goes unnoticed.  We serve a God who cares, provides, and protects us. 
1 Peter 1: verses 24-25

²⁴ For,  “All people are like grass,
   and all their glory is like the flowers of the field;
the grass withers and the flowers fall,
 ²⁵ but the word of the Lord endures forever.”

We cannot understand how God's providence works or what God is doing or why He is doing it.  God did not promise to remove all of our problems.  However, He has promised to provide everything we need to be faithful and receive eternal life.  We must be determined to serve Him faithfully at all costs.  Wow, that is the hard part for me as I am sure it is for many others.

Thought Before Choice.....

On April 26, 1986 shortly after midnight, there occurred near the Ukrainian town of Chernobyl a horrific event.  A gradual meltdown of reactor 4 at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant started as a result of unauthorized testing and a faulty reactor design.  It was by far the worst nuclear accident ever, which immediately sent a radioactive cloud across two continents.  Many suffered large scale involuntary irradiation due to extensive secrecy, as well as many types of cancer.  To this day the Ukrainian government maintains an 18 mile exclusion zone around the former bustling city, also known by people there as the "Alienation Zone".  In the neighboring town of Pripyat hundreds of on lookers watched in amazement on the day of the incident as graphite in the reactor fire burned as a bright rainbow hundreds of feet in the air.  Little did they know that this beautiful vision would also kill nearly all of them from acute radiation poisoning.

Why start out this post with such a horrible event in human history?  Simply put, this whole nightmare that I just recounted was initiated and played out through poor choices.  Reactor staff decided to perform a test involving the shut down of the reactor, one which was neither advised nor sanctioned through policy.  Their choice affected hundreds of thousands that they never even saw or met.  What choices do we make everyday without the thought of the repercussions or who we are affecting?  The intention is not to equate a nuclear disaster with that of many simple decisions made in our lives which turn out less than incredible.  Pay attention to the underlying principle of the event.  The staff at Chernobyl did what they wanted to with little or no regard for how it would affect those around them, or the possible dangers.  The growing trend in society is to act first and throw out the excuses and cover ups later.  Emotion seems to rule the thinking of many in society as they get "caught up in the moment."  So what is the lesson here?  Let's try the oldie but goodie, "Think before you act."  Every choice we make affects so many more people around us than just me, myself, and I.  I have sat in a room over the last couple of months on Sunday telling a group of teenagers three of the most important things they could do in their lives to pursue a relationship with God and maintain a feeling of  freedom in their lives.

1.  Be selfless in your actions.
2. Never do anything you would not be willing to post on the front page of the newspaper.
2. Learn to forgive and be forgiven.

Although their are so many other "life lessons" I truly feel that these reflect a base standard of what any human being should embrace, whether Christian or non-Christian.  

Psalm 15:        ¹ LORD, who may dwell in your sacred tent?  Who may live on your holy mountain?  ² The one whose walk is blameless, who does what is righteous, who speaks the truth from their heart;  ³ whose tongue utters no slander, who does no wrong to a neighbor, and casts no slur on others; ⁴ who despises a vile person but honors those who fear the LORD; who keeps an oath even when it hurts, and does not change their mind; ⁵ who lends money to the poor without interest; who does not accept a bribe against the innocent. Whoever does these things will never be shaken.

The Little Things that Count...

Sometimes it is the little things in life that are often overlooked.  I am not talking about forgetting to do a chore at home, or leaving something out on the counter overnight.  Let's talk about sin.  Most often the little sins in life can lead to much bigger issues down the road.  Yet these are regarded as acceptable short falls in our everyday lives. Although God tells us that all sin is the same, it is most often the common sins that keep us from a greater relationship with God.  Let's review some of these sins I am talking about, and this is the short list: lying, stealing, greed, selfishness, disrespect toward others, seeking revenge, gossip, foul language, and so on.  Quite often these "little" sins generally cause one of two outcomes.  Lets talk about these in more depth.

The first result of accepting these little sins is the rocky path they lead us down.  One small sin leads to the mental acceptance of committing something on a grander scale.  I like to use this analogy even though some disagree with it's comparative characteristics.  Drug users will often start off with an illicit drug that yields much milder affects than others.  As they get more comfortable and welcome a more satisfying feeling they move into harder narcotics such as PCP, heroin, LSD, etc.  I have been caught in the destructive chain of lying in the past.  I always though how a small lie wouldn't hurt, and then another, and then another, until I told so many that it was hard to keep the truth straight anymore.  My lies led me into accepting things into my life and making choices that were spiritually and morally wrong.  I had convinced myself everything was okay as I progressed through the common sins I became more accepting of in my life.  Although I never used drugs in my life, lying was just as bad.  If you don't believe that then you need to take a long hard look in the mirror!

The second result of accepting common sin in your life is the rift that is created between you, and truly knowing a guilt free life with Christ.  When I was sitting at home the other day my son had come into the living room to see me.  A couple minutes later my daughter yells for saying my son had just taken a baby doll from her.  Typically I would yell my son's name and ask, "What is going on out there?"  Instead I looked over and saw the rare sigh of relief and freedom in his face when he knew that he had nothing to do with it.  How incredible is that feeling when guilt loses it's grip on your life? 

I taught this lesson to a class of Junior High students at church last Sunday.  I felt like the reception  was hit and miss, however, it hit home for me.  We fail to take sin seriously day in and day out.  Take that second look at your life today and think about your actions.  Do you sit their and gossip about other people?  Do you swear and cuss at work, maybe at home as well, and then think calling yourself a child of God works for you?  So many people want to view themselves mentally and/or physically strong, and think it is found in being a parent, going to the gym, talking back to someone, or whatever else flips the bill.  Everyone hits that instantaneous moment of making a choice when different paths lay in front of them.  Hold yourself accountable for your actions, and hold others accountable for theirs! 

The Armor of God:  Ephesians 6

 ¹⁰ Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. ¹¹ Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. ¹² For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. ¹³ Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. ¹⁴ Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, ¹⁵ and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. ¹⁶ In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. ¹⁷ Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.
 ¹⁸ And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the Lord’s people. ¹⁹ Pray also for me, that whenever I speak, words may be given me so that I will fearlessly make known the mystery of the gospel, ²⁰ for which I am an ambassador in chains. Pray that I may declare it fearlessly, as I should.