Just Continue That Thought...

A thought by Andy Stanley, (2009-01-21) from his book, Louder Than Words: The Power of Uncompromised Living (Kindle Locations 912-913). The Doubleday Religious Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.  (Click on the title to go to Amazon.com to buy the book.) He then continues and says, “We tend to change His commands to fit our personality, our present lifestyle, or our current circumstances.” Now I read that and thought about some of the stands politically that I read on Facebook of the things that Christians are up in arms about that in reality go against the character standard that Christ shares in His Word.   And I was ready to use this as an opportunity to lash out at our inconsistencies but it then hit me of the character stands He takes on this matter of judging others and that stopped me in my tracks. I don’t believe that if I am a man of character that I can be judgmental.   I can’t and I won’t.   But we must each as individuals determine where we are going to set the

A thought by Andy Stanley, (2009-01-21) from his book, Louder Than Words: The Power of Uncompromised Living (Kindle Location 836). The Doubleday Religious Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. He qualifies that with “For in most cases, our prayers center around the removal of the very circumstances He is using to conform us to His image.” Somehow we need to come to grips with the fact that God’s plan and purpose for us is different than ours.   You see God is an investor and He only invests in those things that will last.   Our outside will not last.   Dust to dust and ashes to ashes but what lasts is what is inside of us, our spirit, our soul, our character.  That is what He invests in.   He wants us to become like Him.   I love the story of the sculptor who was looking at a big piece of granite and someone asked him what he was going to do with it?   And he said that he was going to create a sculpture of an elephant.   And they asked, “How are you going to do that?”   And h

A thought by Andy Stanley, (2009-01-21) from his book, Louder Than Words: The Power of Uncompromised Living (Kindle Locations 511-512). The Doubleday Religious Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. (Click on the title to go to Amazon.com to buy the book.) I know from a Christ follower perspective anything with self in it is a problem.   But Andy says, “The way we view ourselves determines how we will interact with God, family, friends, loved ones, and even those we consider to be our enemies.”   So this is an important relationship in our life. I was just walking back from my time of read and I walked past a group of middle schoolers who were in summer school.   And as I was walking by a young guy was practicing hitting a ball into a floor hockey goal and he missed it by a mile.   Now I didn’t look up so he would notice he had missed it because I know how embarrassed he would have been.   I’m sure he was telling himself that he couldn’t do it maybe because he was a loser and I fe

A thought by Andy Stanley, (2009-01-21) from his book, Louder Than Words: The Power of Uncompromised Living (Kindle Location 497). The Doubleday Religious Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. You have experienced that haven’t you?   Andy says, “In that moment we become keenly aware of a disparity between God’s standard and the one we are living out. We are filled with a gnawing sense of unworthiness, and we feel distanced from Him. We call this feeling guilt.”   And that guilt affects my relationship with God. I know that God hates pride.   I just was at Whole Foods Market and I put the checker on the spot on something that I thought she had done wrong.   As I was walking out I had this feeling inside that I had mishandled that.   I saw that my pride had reared its ugly head and that it had the potential to hurt my relationship with God.   Now I could have just ignored the feeling and rationalized that she was trying to jip me out of some of my money and that I had the rig

A thought by Andy Stanley, (2009-01-21) from his book, Louder Than Words: The Power of Uncompromised Living (Kindle Locations 446-447). The Doubleday Religious Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. Now to Andy, “Character is the will to do what is right, as defined by God, regardless of personal cost.”    In reality having character is other’s-oriented.   “As we subscribe to God’s absolute standard of right and wrong, we are directed to focus on the needs of others instead of ourselves.” Here are some examples that Andy gives.   “It’s that one-in-a-million friend who never says anything negative about you in your absence. It’s the guy who quickly owns up to his mistakes instead of blaming others. It’s the woman who is quick to give credit to the person who originated an idea rather than taking credit herself. It’s the husband who has only positive things to say about his wife in public. It’s the wife who allows her husband to lead when everyone knows she is more gifted in that a

A thought by Leonard Sweet, (2012-01-03) from his book, I Am a Follower: The Way, Truth, and Life of Following Jesus (p. 20). Thomas Nelson. Kindle Edition.   (Click on the title to go to Amazon.com to buy the book.) I have been challenged by Leonard Sweet back to his first books on the church.   He brings things into focus and this thought does it for me again.   He shares, “Leadership is a functional position of power and authority. Followership is a relational posture of love and trust.”   And somehow it is imperative in our walk with Him to see that He is the leader and we are the follower.   The disciples show us how that worked.   They were chosen by Him just as we are and they accepted His call as we should and they walked and watched and followed Him wherever He went.   And that could be where our problem starts.   I mean they saw Him in person.   They could talk to Him, ask Him questions, watch Him but now we say that we don’t have that ability so we look to be

A thought by Andy Stanley, (2009-04-23) from his book, The Best Question Ever (p. 183). The Doubleday Religious Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. He already gave the ultimate gift for us even before we were born, ever before we knew we needed it.   He showed He loved us by giving His Son for us on the Cross.   So why would He do that for us? Andy says, “God desires that your life be a masterpiece that reflects His greatness and your uniqueness. But to create a masterpiece with our lives, we must submit ourselves to the hand of the Master. We must allow Him to influence each stroke on the canvas of our lives.” Now the problem in all of this is, we believe that we can make the masterpiece and we don’t need any help.   And many of us are doing a pretty good job and that is also the problem. One of the principles of Church Planting and I was a Church Planter, was that the people who were the most open to going to a new church were those who were going through some transit