Just Continue That Thought...

A thought by John Townsend from his book, People Fuel (p. 58). Zondervan. Kindle Edition. (Click on the book title to go to Amazon.com to buy the book.) Townsend, John. People Fuel (p. 42). Zondervan. Kindle Edition. Yes, it is. John says, “It did a much better job than the law did to bring us into right standing before God, ‘so that, just as sin reigned in death, so also grace might reign through righteousness to bring eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord’ (Rom. 5:21). Another word for grace is favor, as in one person bending or stooping to be kind to another. A practical way to understand grace is to think of it as God being for us. He always wants our best and does not move to our detriment. Even when we are weak or straying or rebellious, God is for us. “Grace helps us feel loved and connected, helps us tolerate our own failure and that of others, and strengthens us to fight another day. God provides us with grace vertically (directly, from himself) and hor

A thought by John Townsend from his book, People Fuel (p. 42). Zondervan. Kindle Edition. (Click on the book title to go to Amazon.com to buy the book.) Townsend, John. People Fuel (p. 42). Zondervan. Kindle Edition. Have you?  I'm sure you have. John says, “With any significant connection with someone, over time we will disagree, bug each other, hurt each other’s feelings, or separate from one another. No relationship of any gravitas is without its speed bumps. It’s just the nature of being human. If you have never disagreed with someone important in your life, one of you is not necessary.” He goes on, “But the great relationships are those which employ the love, persistence, character, and skills required to work things out and move on. The connections are often stronger once the storm has been weathered. “This capacity to solve problems is a rare commodity today. How often have you expressed a difference of opinion or experienced a conflict, a

A thought by John Townsend from his book, People Fuel (p. 28). Zondervan. Kindle Edition. (Click on the book title to go to Amazon.com to buy the book.) So, what about our needs? John says, “The reality is that we are more alike than we are different. The genders have much more in common with each other than we have distinctions. We all are created in God’s image. We all need to be attached deeply. We all need to have our own identities and boundaries. We all need to accept our flaws and those of others. We all need to find our purpose in life and express our talents to accomplish that purpose. Women and men share all of this, and this encompasses the majority of life. If we put the genders in two circles on a Venn diagram, most of the space would be intersected space and the minority of the space would be solely male and solely female. He goes on, “The implications are that both genders need to work on this. Most men have to work harder on this than most women do. But

A thought by John Townsend from his book, People Fuel (p. 19). Zondervan. Kindle Edition. (Click on the book title to go to Amazon.com to buy the book.) Do you know this?   He is! John says, “God is, at his essence, about love: ‘We know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them’ (1 John 4:16). And since love requires relationship, God is highly invested in relationships. He wants relationship with us, and he wants us to have relationships with each other.” John goes on, “Needs bring us together, into relationship. Think about the opposite situation, a person living in a self-sufficient and isolated manner, say, someone who lives away from others in the wilderness, surviving on his own without a supportive community, a loner who insists on not being dependent on anything or anyone. While we might admire his strength, we don’t tend to make him a model for the whole and successful life. “At the same time, we