“I Will Instruct You”

Once again from Phil Jackson at Red Letter Christians. I’m really enjoying his insight this week.

“I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will counsel you with my loving eye on you.”
Psalm 32:8

A friend of my, Soong-Chan Rah, posted on Facebook once that the heart that is willing to hear a no and obey is the heart that can be trusted with a yes. This is one of the acid tests of our walk with Christ, trusting in the counsel of God in our daily lives and in whatever ministry Christ calls us to. Too many times my plans become God’s plans and then I can and will justify that this is right before God. All because I didn’t want to a tune my ears to hear God’s no. Proverbs 16:2-3 tells us people maybe pure in their own eyes but the Lord examines their motives. Now, Prov 16:3 is our challenge today as we serve and live for God, commit your actions to the Lord and your plans will succeed.

Do Nothing from Selfish Ambition

Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves.
Philippians 2:3

Mother Teresa once said, “Whenever there is an absence of peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other.” Do you live throughout your day thinking about “belonging to each other”? What would happen if you did? What would happen if you woke up today and literally lived on purpose towards the betterment of someone else? From Phil Jackson at Red Letter Christians

There is No Fear in Love

There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love. 1 John 4:18

What do you fear? You’ve heard the axiom that F.E.A.R is False Evidence Appearing Real. Fear is that emotion that can cause issues we face to seem bigger than life and can and has caused us to freeze, fight or flight. Yet today think on 1 John 4:18, “There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.” Phil Jackson from Red Letter Christians

One Thing is Needed

Chances are extremely high that your religious activity and dogged understanding of Jesus are keeping you from Him.

Luke 10:38-42

Now it happened as they went that He entered a certain village; and a certain woman named Martha welcomed Him into her house. And she had a sister called Mary, who also sat at Jesus’ feet and heard His word. But Martha was distracted with much serving, and she approached Him and said, “Lord, do You not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Therefore tell her to help me.” And Jesus answered and said to her, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and troubled about many things. But one thing is needed, and Mary has chosen that good part, which will not be taken away from her.”

“To develop a broader vision we must be willing to forsake, to kill, our narrower vision. In the short run it is more comfortable not to do this – to stay where we are, to keep using the same microcosmic map, to avoid suffering the death of cherished notions. The road of spiritual growth, however, lies in the opposite direction. We begin by distrusting what we already believe, by actively seeking the threatening and unfamiliar, by deliberately challenging the validity of what we have previously been taught and hold dear. The path to holiness lies through questioning everything.” -M. Scott Peck

“The treatment of Jesus at the hands of the authorities and the official paranoia over every radical dissenter in history demonstrates the deep fear of the principalities and powers when the legitimacy of their authority is challenged and a confrontation with the truth exposes the idolatrous nature of their power.” – Jim Wallis, Agenda for Biblical People, p.106

“There is an age when one teaches what one knows.
But there follows another when one teaches what one does not know…
It comes, maybe now, the age of another experience: that of unlearning…” -Roland Barthes

A return to kindness

I’m with Allie, choosing kindness…

Adventure and Wonder

This is not a political post. 

Still with me?

Kids do it.
Jayhawks do it.
Republicans and Democrats do it.

They choose to be kind.
Each day people we like or may not appreciate at all choose kindness in the face of opposition
gossip
hatemongering
sabotage
fear
and exhaustion.

Kindness is a reasonable schtick to these people; it serves them for the long haul.

Want to be known for something? Let it include kindness:

SuperKind Genius
Kind-hearted taxi driver
Friend who is frank and also purposefully kind
Beanwater Barista with a flair for kindness
Customer who chooses kindness over impatience
Person with whom ____ cannot agree and is kind

If a three-year-old kid with sand caked in every piece of clothing at the end of a beach day can be kind, we all have a shot at it. We’ve seen these little miracles work before.

It is too easy to…

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Shine

When I see the darkness in me,
Brighter the light you shine.
When I search for darkness in you,
Dimmer the light that’s mine.

Collaboration

Life is intended to be a collaboration not a competition.

Humility is a Thing of Beauty

Convicted

Here’s a repost from Frank Viola’s Blog:

I’ve often said that good preachers leave you saying, “What a great sermon!” While great preachers leave you saying, “Wow, what a Christ!”

On that score, some churches have created a culture of guilt. Every sermon preached is judged by how guilty it makes the listeners feel. The more guilty, the better. And if there’s no guilt, the sermon was a dud.In these churches, the guilt is described by the term “conviction.”

Continue here: http://frankviola.org/2016/09/29/convicted/

Hang

Matthew 22:36-40 “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law?” Jesus said to him, ‘YOU SHALL LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, WITH ALL YOUR SOUL, AND WITH ALL YOUR MIND.’ This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like it: ‘YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF.’ On These two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.”

What if we read the last sentence without the word On? Would our understanding of the importance of what Jesus is saying become clearer? Could we finally truly know that the law and the prophets only bring death and that Jesus came to show us that God’s intent was and is always life?