Ruthless
If you grew up eating animal crackers and drinking fruit juice at Sunday School, there’s a good chance you’ll recognize this classic song:
“Father Abraham had many sons, and many sons had Father Abraham. I am one of them, and so are you, so let’s all praise the Lord. Right arm, left arm, right foot, left foot, nod your head, turn around, sit down!”
By that last verse, you’ve pretty much done a 15-minute HIIT workout, but what’s this song even about?
Galatians 3:6-7 says, “You remember Abraham. Scripture tells us, ‘Abraham believed God and trusted in His promises, so God counted it to his favor as righteousness.’ Know this: people who trust in God are the true sons and daughters of Abraham.“
So, Father Abraham is not just a silly song that gets preschoolers to expound vast amounts of energy; it’s scriptural. We are sons and daughters of Abraham, but notice, it’s not our DNA that proves we are true sons and daughters of Abraham, it’s our belief. It’s us trusting that we are made right with God by grace through faith, fully buying into the fact that we can’t work our way to righteousness. Abraham was the first to walk this out, so naturally, he’s referred to as the father of our faith.
The grace message was a hard pill for the law-loving legalists of Jesus’s day to swallow. They wanted to be made right by keeping the law, and they desired to relate as sons of Abraham based on their genetics–their bloodline. So, they went around proudly singing, Father Abraham had many sons, and I am one of them, but it seems as if they forgot that Abraham had two sons.
Ishmael and Isaac.
And that leads me to a question that the Holy Spirit has asked me several times over the past 21 days: Who is your momma?
God promised that Abraham and Sarah, who were childless and beyond their child-bearing years, would give birth to a son. But instead of patiently waiting to see the promise fulfilled, they took matters into their own hands. They decided to do things their way instead of God’s way. They stepped out of God’s will, and Sarah had Abraham sleep with her servant Hagar. Sarah’s faith was in Hagar’s ability to conceive and bear children, instead of in the promise God gave her. Of course, Hagar became pregnant and Ishmael, Abraham’s firstborn son, took his first breath nine months later.
From the moment Hagar saw the two pink lines on her First Response test, trouble ensued. I can’t imagine the drama in that household. Hagar thought she was better than Sarah. Sarah was abusive toward Hagar. And Abraham was caught in the middle of it all.
Thirteen years later God tells Abraham that Sarah is going to have a baby, and THIS baby, not Ishmael, will be the son of promise. The son born of Sarah would be the one through which God established His covenant, and a year later Sarah gave birth to Isaac.
Father Abraham now had two sons who were 14 years apart. And just as there was conflict between Hagar and Sarah, there was conflict between Ishmael and Isaac. In Genesis 21 Abraham threw a big party to celebrate Isaac being weaned, and during the festivities, Ishmael began to mock his baby brother. Sarah catches wind of this and here’s what happens next:
Genesis 21:10-12 So she [Sarah] turned to Abraham and demanded, “Get rid of that slave woman and her son. He is not going to share the inheritance with my son, Isaac. I won’t have it!” This upset Abraham very much because Ishmael was his son. But God told Abraham, “Do not be upset over the boy and your servant. Do whatever Sarah tells you, for Isaac is the son through whom your descendants will be counted.
As a mother, my heart hurt for Ishmael when I read this. It seemed so ruthless of Sarah and Abraham, and it didn’t seem to line up with the character of God. How could they just send this single mother and her teenage son out into the wilderness? I mean I get it, mama bear comes out when someone messes with your baby, but this punishment seemed too harsh.
I wasn’t able to move past it even though I knew if I studied it out I would fall behind on my Bible reading plan. My heart wasn’t satisfied with the mama bear excuse, so I started to dig, and God began to unpack truths that I know I’ll never forget. I hope you’ll stick with me a little while longer so He can do the same for you.
Galatians 4 is where I found all the answers my heart was hungry for. In verses 21-31 Paul contrasts Abraham’s two sons.
Ishmael was born of a slave in a human attempt to bring about the fulfillment of God’s promise. Isaac was born of a free woman and was God’s own fulfillment of His promise. Isaac was conceived by grace through faith. Ishmael was conceived according to the flesh.
Ishmael represents legalism and our human attempts to attain righteousness. Isaac represents the gospel, the good news that Jesus made a way for you and me to experience the miracle of salvation.
When I began to see that Ishmael embodied our flesh, our unbelief, and us putting our will before God’s will, sending him packing didn’t seem so harsh anymore. My heart no longer went out to him.
You see, spirit and flesh, unbelief and faith, human effort and the miraculous, law and grace, they just don’t mesh. They can’t abide together peacefully and in the same ruthless way that Ishmael was sent away, we must send away our flesh, our unbelief, and our endeavor to complete our Christian duty checklists to get on God’s good side.
Friends, we are sons and daughters of promise and we’ve got to stop feeling for our flesh!
Galatians 4:31 So then, believers, we [who are born again—reborn from above—spiritually transformed, renewed, and set apart for His purpose] are not children of a slave woman [the natural], but of the free woman [the supernatural].
We are free! We have been given supernatural power over sin. We have authority over our mind, will, and emotions. We are the sons and daughters to which God has left a rich inheritance, and it’s time we start living in it! It’s time to be ruthless with our old man, our sinful nature, in the same way Sarah was ruthless with Ishmael.
This is the time of year when most Christians are wrapping up a fast of some sort. Maybe you’ve been fasting social media, coffee, bread, complaining, sugar, frivolous spending, or secular music. You’ve denied your flesh. And perhaps you’re like me, and you’d admit that a few times during your fast you felt sorry for yourself in the same way that I felt sorry for Ishmael at first glance. Maybe in those moments of sympathizing with your flesh you even gave in and snuck a Starbucks on a super stressful day, only then to feel guilty for the next 24 hours. We’ve all been there. Or maybe you’ve been perfect on your fast, but you can’t wait for it to be over so you can get back to giving your flesh whatever it wants whenever it wants it. That’s not the kind of freedom God’s called us to walk in.
We’re the sons and daughters born into freedom not so we can cave to our sinful desires, but so that we use our authority to send those sinful desires heartlessly into the wilderness, far away from the path on which God has set our feet. Sin has no hold on us.
During my fast this year the Holy Spirit revealed so much to me about my heritage. He helped me to see that when I’m tempted to feel compassion for my flesh, unbelief, and the pull to connect to God through works instead of through grace, that somewhere in my spiritual makeup is the power to say NO.
I am not called to make sure my flesh and my spirit live peaceably with one another. I’m not called to a life of comfort, temporary gratification or short-lived escapes from the world around me. I’m called to live a life of ruthlessly denying my flesh, so my spirit reigns the roost.
I want to experience more of the supernatural and less of reruns on Netflix. I want to experience more of the presence of God and less of the same-sounding top 40 songs. I want to experience more of the lasting comfort of God and less of the fleeting comfort of chocolate, caffeine, and long baths. I want to experience more joy and gratitude and less mood swings and complaining.
Whenever we send our flesh and unbelief away into the wilderness, our spiritual senses become more elevated. We can taste and see and hear and feel God all around, not because we’re working some formula, but because it’s part of our inheritance as sons and daughters of promise.
As you head into a new month and close out your time of fasting, continue to remind yourself that Father Abraham had many sons, and many sons had Father Abraham, and you are one of them. You’re the one who represents the gospel and the freedom that Christ set you free to walk in.
Don’t catch feels for your flesh, be like your spiritual momma, and stand up for your spirit!
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01
Spirit + Life + Linguistics
Ah, Christmas break: the one time of year I refuse to set my alarm and allow myself to sleep until my body feels it’s had enough. I’ve been sleeping till 8 am the last few days which may not seem late to you, but when 5:30 am is your usual wake up call, 8 am feels like noon! It’s been a restful and relaxing two weeks, although the achiever in me is officially ready to get back to accomplishing more than binging Netflix’s Manhunt: Unabomber series.
What a fascinating show, though. I had heard of the Unabomber. I remember seeing his sketch as a child, and since my mom worked for the U.S. Postal Service, we paid attention when his devastating crimes were on the news. I knew he mailed bombs and successfully remained anonymous for 17 long years, but I had never heard the story of how the FBI caught the twisted recluse.
Linguistics.
The study of human speech including the units, nature, structure, and modification of language.
FBI profiler, James Fitzgerald relentlessly studied the Unabomber’s 35,000-word manifesto–the structure and nature of his words. He studied how he phrased things, how he spelled things. And based on his language alone, the profiler was able to predict how old the bomber was, where he grew up, that he lived cut off from the rest of the world, and when he received his Ph.D. All of that and more, just based on studying his type-written words.
Fitzgerald believed that if the manifesto were published, someone, somewhere would recognize the language and turn the Unabomber in, and he was right.
A woman read the manifesto and immediately recognized the language from letters her husband had received from his brother. Could the Unabomber be her brother-in-law whom she had never met? She turned him in as a suspect and handed over a box full of letters Ted Kaczynski had sent to her husband over many years. After matching up words, phrases, and timelines, the FBI got their search warrant which led to Ted’s arrest and a lifetime behind bars.
This was the first search warrant in history based on forensic linguistics. Kaczynski was the first man in the history of the United States convicted on language clues.
Language is very much a part of who we are. The words we say and the way we say them represent our age, our ethnicity, where we grew up, and what we know.
I used to confuse my husband when we were dating when I started talking about crayons because I pronounce them “crowns.” He thought it was just a weird Sarah word, but the more he got to know my family, he realized we all say “crowns.” And it doesn’t end there; it seems that everyone who grew up in East Tulsa says it the same way. Josh was a South Tulsa kid, and it’s easy to tell when he says “Cray-ons” all fancy like.
I’m sure you can think of specific words or phrases you say, that would be concrete enough evidence to prove you were a 90s kid, an avid C.S. Lewis reader, a west-coaster or an east-coaster.
But what about a Christ-follower? Is your speech, your writing, the way you string words together, concrete enough evidence to prove your devotion to God and His way of doing things?
Colossians 3:17 And whatever you do or SAY, do it as a representative of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through him to God the Father.
Whatever we do or SAY. God’s Word is clear: our words matter.
If a linguistics expert were to study you, combing over the 20,000 words you say in a day, would they conclude that you were just like Jesus? Do the words that come out of your mouth or off of your fingertips represent Jesus?
Every word Jesus said was full of truth and grace. His words were deliberate, thought through. Full of hope. He was never talking just to hear Himself talk, but to set captives free.
Every. Moment. Red. Letter.
Everyone could tell He wasn’t from around these parts. He was always talking Kingdom. His words were futuristic and confident, but not prideful. He was honoring–so, so honoring of His father. He spoke love, and he never complained, like ever. He was full of wisdom and perfect advice. He used his speech to encourage.
I could go on and on about the beautiful language of Jesus, but I think this statement from Him sums it all up.
The words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life. John 6:63
If everything we say is meant to represent Jesus than everything we say should be spirit and life. And because Jesus has sent the Holy Spirit to flow in and through us like a mighty river, we have everything we need to represent Jesus and represent Him well!
I’ve noticed when I speak spirit to spirit with my kids it goes over so much better than when I speak from my flesh to theirs. My flesh accomplishes nothing. I can yell and be annoyed and tell them to stop being mean to each other, or I can ask the Holy Spirit to speak through me as I sit them down and purpose to represent Jesus and get to the root of the issue at hand–whether it’s jealousy or someone just being tired and hungry.
When I speak life over my husband, he receives it. He soaks it up. It charges him to step right on into whatever God is calling him to do. But when I speak death the opposite happens.
Spirit and Life or Flesh and Death? You get to choose. You get to decide how you’ll string words together this year. You get to decide if you’ll let your flesh lead the way in your day-to-day conversations or if you’ll allow the Spirit to work through you. You get to decide if you speak death over yourself by agreeing with the lies of the enemy or if you speak life by agreeing with the promises of God. The choice seems obvious to me, but just because it’s obvious doesn’t mean it’s easy. It’s not easy.
It’s humanly impossible to represent Jesus with whatever we say or type this year, unless, we decide to let Him do the heavy lifting.
Matthew 11:29-30 Take my yoke upon you. Let me teach you, because I am humble and gentle at heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy to bear, and the burden I give you is light.
If you’ll accept this holy burden to speak spirit and life and allow Jesus to be your teacher, you can genuinely represent Him to every person you come in contact with this coming new year. And that’s good news because what the world needs is more of Him and less of us.
Remember, language is very much a part of who we are. The words we say and the way we say them represent our age, our ethnicity, where we grew up, and what we know.
May our language represent Jesus and everything good and perfect that He stands for. Spirit and Life, friends, Spirit and Life!
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When Friends Aren’t Fluent In Your Love Language
For the last twenty-two years over 15 million people have taken Gary Chapman’s “5 Love Languages” official assessment to determine how they best receive love. And over the past twenty-two years, circles of girl friends have had great conversations as they share with one another what their primary love language is. It seems like any time I’m getting to know a new group of girls the question, “what is your love language” always comes up. We want to know, are you a words-of-affirmation person, acts of service, physical touch, quality time, or is receiving gifts at the top of your profile. We also want to make sure everyone knows what our top language is—one, because, it’s human nature to like to talk about yourself, right? Or is that just me? And two, because if we are building a friendship, we feel it’s important for our new friend to know how they can make us the happiest.
I love the five simple categories Dr. Chapman established in the book, and I believe the assessment is a very beneficial test in the way it helps us to understand how God created us to best relate to others, but after a great, in-depth talk with my friend Courtney, whom you’ll get to hear from in a bit, she helped me see how sometimes we use our love languages to create unhealthy expectations in our marriages and in our friendships.
It’s empowering to find out the way you best receive love is through words of affirmation. It’s as if someone has given you a key to help unlock the thing for which you hunger. Naturally, you fill your friends in, and once they know, you expect them to never forget this important piece of information about you. But naturally, they will. They won’t always love you the way you most want to be loved. They may forget to compliment the article you wrote and shared on your blog. They may forget to commend you for being a great mom on Mother’s Day. They may sign your birthday card “happy birthday” when you were expecting a paragraph about how much you mean to them. And after enough run-ins with a friend who continually lets us down by not speaking our love language, we start to harbor bitterness toward them. And we start to feel unloved and unworthy. But as my very wise friend Courtney says, friendship was never designed to measure our worth it was designed to enrich our lives. When you are looking to your friends to fill your love cup, you’ll always be disappointed.
The good news is, the God we serve is love, and He not only created us to receive love uniquely, but He also speaks all five love languages fluently. His love will never disappoint us. So what if, instead of going through life hoping that our spouse and our friends make us feel loved, we purpose to connect with God daily and allow Him to minister to us via our love languages. I truly believe that if we seek God’s love first, we will find it, and it will surpass all our expectations in a way that enables us to take the pressure off of our earthly relationships.
Am I saying we don’t needs friends? No way! God has called us to be in relationship with one another. We need friends to build us up and spur us on, and we need to have friends that we are building up and spurring on. But, we have to realize our friends can’t meet all of our needs according to their riches in glory and vice versa. We look to God first, and in Him we find the ultimate friend: one that sticks closer than a brother and knows us better than we know ourselves.
I have asked a few of my friends, who also happen to be HIS small group leaders, to help me write about our top love languages and the different ways we experience God’s love for us as it relates to our primary language. Our prayer is that you will begin to identify the unique ways that God wants to love on you and be more aware than ever that although His love is vast, He knows how to customize it just for you.
Acts Of Service – Sarah Blount
I have always appreciated when someone goes the extra mile. I love when my husband makes the bed and helps me around the house. I really appreciate when a co-worker offers to take something off of my very full plate. And I might burst into a dance party if one of my kids carried in the groceries without having to be asked. Because I carry so much responsibility, I feel loved when others jump in to help lighten the load. But of course, people have let me down in this area and of course, I’ve been harder on them than I should have been because I was looking to them to come to my rescue when I’m in over my head, instead of looking to God.
Psalm 55:22 Give your burdens to the Lord, and he will take care of you.
How often are we waiting for someone to help us carry our burdens, when God is standing in front of us with His arms ready to receive, asking, how can I help. Those are the most romantic four words an acts-of-service person could ever hear, and Jesus is constantly whispering them to our spirits. But we often miss His still small offer to help because we are too busy looking for someone else to cast our cares upon. God has pledged to carry your sin and shame, your anxiety, the burdens that are weighing you down, and get this because it’s SO good, He’s pledged to carry you!
Isaiah 46:4 I will be your God throughout your lifetime–until your hair is white with age. I made you, and I will care for you. I will carry you along and save you!
Acts-of-service girls, let our Servant King sweep you off your feet on the daily.
Words Of Affirmation – Colie Hanson
For me words of affirmation bring clarity. They let me know that I hit the mark or am on the right track, and without them there is less certainty. Words give me permission to go deeper as well as to know my place in someone’s life or in an organization/team. To have my husband praise all the extras I have done that day or to have a friend to relay that I am indeed someone they enjoy getting to know is life giving. These things are deposits into my emotional bank account, but are they where my hope is found?
1 Corinthians 2:11 For what person knows the thoughts and motives of a man except the man’s spirit within him? So also no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. (Amplified)
Finding out that I not only have the Word of God but direct access to the thoughts of God as well, through the Holy Spirit, changed my life (and switched my hope focus). At any moment in my day, I can ask God what He thinks of me and the wins that I have had. At the same time, I can just as easily hear how He sees me and my situation when I am broken or worn down. Coupling hearing God through His Word and hearing Him directly for ourselves is like putting on glasses for the first time after years of trying to see through blurry eyes.
Physical Touch – Ashley Bassoppo-Moyo
It wasn’t until I lived overseas in a house full of strangers that I realized how important being hugged is to me. I grew up with my dad giving me these long hugs, telling me how proud he was of me, on just about a daily basis. The year and a half I lived with these strangers, they became like family, but they didn’t speak this language that I had been so accustomed to over the course of my childhood and thus I often felt unloved. It was during this season that I realized that to have this deep longing for intimacy fulfilled, I needed to seek this from my God.
Physical touch people can get labeled as being “touchy feely,” but in this common label I believe we catch a glimpse of the heart of God. See, God is the perfect model of the Loving Father I had come to experience in those hugs from my dad. Those were good, pure, intimate moments of closeness, and I believe God wants every one of us to experience good, pure, intimate moments of closeness when He simply lets us know how much He loves us. He wants to touch our hearts and fill us with feelings of intimacy.
Song of Solomon 6:3 I am my Beloved’s and my Beloved is mine.
There is something very key that must take place to live in the fullness of this intimate relationship with God. Just as in a romantic relationship, we must put our walls down and accept the overwhelming love of God. Sometimes, however, pride can take the form of self-denial. If you find yourself feeling uncomfortable at the idea of God lavishing His love on you and connecting with God on the basis of His overwhelming love for you, you are denying Him the very thing you would never withhold from someone as close as a spouse or a child.
Allow God to love you and be the One you look to for intimacy and pure moments of love. He will not deny you, and as you pursue Him, He will pursue you back (Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. James 4:8), and you will find something so much more filling than any human relationship could ever be. Allow yourself to receive and pursue that love in God every day!
Gifts – Andrea Tompkins
I’ve always felt that having gifts as a top love language was such a selfish trait to hold. Who wants to admit, I feel loved when you give me things? But, after glimpsing into God’s heart a little further, I’m convinced it’s His number one love language as well. I so enjoy the sweet way He continually affirms, then reaffirms just how much He loves us with the gifts He’s given us in scripture. From the first gift of a companion to Adam in Genesis 2 to Jesus’ promises of parting gifts riddled throughout the New Testament: the gift of a Helper in John 14:16 and the gift of peace in John 14:27 to name a few. God’s Word is chock full of how much He shows His vast love for us, through His giving of gifts. If our aim here is to experience love and fulfillment through Him then we need to RECEIVE that GIFT of love from Him first before looking to people to fulfill that need.
Jeremiah 31:3 I’ve never quit loving you and never will. Expect love, love, and more love!
What a sweet promise; no matter our temperament yesterday, today or tomorrow, no matter how we look, or what we’ve done or haven’t done for Him, even if we haven’t expressed our love to Him lately or sought to fill His love tank, we can still only, “expect love, love, and more love” from Him. He still offers that gift up to us daily. And since God is Love, then I imagine His gift of love to us is top notch and comes wrapped in the prettiest paper, adorned with the biggest bow and hand delivered straight to our heart. So let’s dive in, unwrap that gift, and soak in His sweet love for us today.
Quality Time – Courtney Haggard
Let’s get coffee: the three magical words all of us quality time ladies really want to hear. Seriously though, meaningful one-on-one time with a good friend can be so life giving–and because we gain so much fulfillment from these encounters, we crave them. Maybe you’re like me, and you can have an incredible time with a friend, only to feel emptied just days later. I can spend hours with a bestie on Monday, and feel like I don’t see that person enough by Thursday. I can’t help it; my cup constantly desires to be filled by time with others. If I am not careful though, I can slip into a habit of placing too much unhealthy responsibility on the relationships in my life, specifically friendships. Friendships are not designed to fill our cups; they are designed as a gift to enrich our lives.
If your quality-time bucket is feeling empty, my question to you is simple: what does your relationship with the Lord look like, and how often do you pursue one-on-one time with Him? As a quality time gal, you are naturally inclined to feel loved through a relationship, and connection with Jesus is the only thing that has the power to actually fulfill you!
Psalm 107:9 For he satisfies the longing soul, and the hungry soul He fills with good things.
The good news is, God is a quality time expert! He is always available. He is never too tired or busy. His schedule is always a perfect fit for yours. When we seek the Lord in a fulfilling relationship, we can kiss misfiring friendships goodbye. Gone are the days of feeling left out, forgotten, or empty. We can wake up each day in the overwhelming goodness of fulfillment and joy.
Psalm 16:11 In your presence, there is fullness of joy.
As you can see, God wants to meet you right where you are at and minister love to you in the exact, perfect way that you’ll best receive it, so give Him a chance FIRST, before placing impossible expectations on your friends and family.
For a free small group study guide to go along with this devotional, click here.
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Critical Condition: Overcoming a Negative Outlook
The American Hospital Association recommends healthcare providers use the following terminology when describing the condition of a patient. Undetermined: The patient hasn’t been diagnosed yet. Stable: The patient’s vital signs are normal, and even though they might be in pain, recovery is favorable. Serious: The patient is very ill, and vital signs may be unstable. Critical: The patient has unstable vitals that are not normal, and could be unconscious. Indicators for recovery are unfavorable.
No one ever wants to hear that a loved one is in critical condition. Those two words carry an awful amount of weight with them. Weight that sends you to your knees, begging God to intercede–to do something–to miraculously change the condition of the person whose life in on the line.
We live in a day and age where we have been conditioned to be critical, and because of this, there are far too many Christians walking around with spiritual condition health charts stamped: critical. Their vitals are not normal. They aren’t showing signs of joy, freedom, peace, and victory like they should be. Many of them are completely unconscious, painfully unaware that they suck life out of people with their steady stream of negativity. And unless things drastically improve, a full recovery is not looking good.
The old adage, “everyone’s a critic,” is truer today than it’s ever been. With just a few taps here and a few clicks there, we can let everyone know what we think about the new restaurant in town or the movie we saw over the weekend. We no longer need Siskel and Ebert’s thumbs; thanks to Facebook we’ve got millions of thumbs to communicate what we do or don’t like. There’s a whole entertainment industry built around judges who get paid millions to sit back and criticize performers. Hear me, I am a huge fan of apps like Rotten Tomatoes and Yelp. I’m an avid Facebook user, and I watch reality TV talent shows too, but if we aren’t careful, the judgmental nature of the culture in which we live can affect our view finder, causing us to focus on the worst instead of the best.
I’ll be the first to admit, I struggle with this. Sunday mornings are game day for me. My husband and I pastor a two-year-old church plant. We’ve put our heart and soul into this thing. It’s not just a hobby or something we do for fun, it’s our family’s mission. Every week we have amazing church services. There are people everywhere, worship is so good it makes you want to literally never stop singing, we have the best volunteers in the world, ministry is happening on every level. But even among all the good, my critical eye can spot something that could be better and sometimes instead of going home praising God for all He did, I find myself consumed with the one thing that wasn’t perfectly executed.
If you are like me, I want you to know that being able to spot things that could be better is not a bad thing. It’s actually a really great gift God has placed in you, and if stewarded well can be used to improve your sphere of influence. But, if the bad is all you seem to focus on, you will lose your ability to enjoy life, and that doesn’t sit well with the One who came so that you might have AND ENJOY life.
I have known a few professional fault finders in my day. They don’t get paid in cash to look for shortcomings in every person or situation they have ever encountered, instead, they get paid with the temporary gratification of feeling a little bit better about themselves when they criticize others. They tirelessly read into everyone’s every word and endlessly examine everything with intent to find dirt so that it makes them appear a little shinier.
I have also known some people who aren’t negative toward others, but they’ll be the first and fastest to point out their own flaws. They don’t want to give anyone else a chance to criticize them, so in an effort to protect their heart, they criticize themselves.
Neither of those kinds of people could be described as joyful because when we spend our days criticizing ourselves and others, or focusing solely on the negative, we negate the cross. We make null the above-and-beyond life that Jesus wants for us here on earth, as it will be in heaven.
So how do we overcome? How do we condition our hearts to see and celebrate God’s goodness instead of being negative?
First, we have to recognize that having a critical spirit is a critical situation. We have to see that it’s hurtful to God, ourselves, and others, and we must earnestly desire change.
You are probably familiar with Luke 6:37, “Do not judge others, and you will not be judged.” But let’s look at in The Message paraphrase:
Don’t pick on people, jump on their failures, criticize their faults—unless, of course, you want the same treatment. Don’t condemn those who are down; that hardness can boomerang. Be easy on people; you’ll find life a lot easier.
This isn’t a suggestion. It’s a command from Jesus Himself. Don’t criticize people. Don’t dig for dirt, dig for gold. Don’t waste your time judging every human’s words, actions, or motives, unless you want your every word, action, and motive to be judged.
In Matthew 14, Mary pours out a very expensive jar of perfume over Jesus’ head, and the disciples jumped all over her.
Matthew 14:8-9 But when His disciples saw it, they were indignant, saying, “Why this waste? For this fragrant oil might have been sold for much and given to the poor.”
I love Jesus’ response in verse 10, “Why criticize this woman for doing such a good thing to me?”
Maybe the disciples criticized Mary because they were jealous. I’m sure the fact that she was able to bless Jesus with such an extravagant gift and they couldn’t made them feel like they were in competition with her. If you find yourself criticizing others, there may be some jealousy issues that need dealt with. Or maybe they genuinely thought she was being wasteful. So what if they did. It was not their place to judge her intentions, and Jesus wasn’t about to let them slide. This is a serious issue to Him, and it should be to us as well.
Secondly, we have to repent.
Repenting is more than saying you’re sorry or asking God to forgive you. True repentance is when you realize that what you are doing is sin, and then you turn away from it. It’s proving that you’ve had a change of heart.
Matthew 3:8 So produce fruit that is consistent with repentance [demonstrating new behavior that proves a change of heart, and a conscious decision to turn away from sin].
How are you going to demonstrate that your critical condition has changed? What’s your plan for producing fruit that is consistent with a repentant heart? If we don’t have a plan in place, I’m afraid we’ll fall right back into our negative ways. Your plan may look different from the plan of the person sitting next to you, but here’s one thing both plans must have in place: allow your Creator to create again.
Luke 6:45 A good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and an evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart. For the mouth speaks what the heart is full of.
If your heart is full of negative thoughts toward yourself, others, or just life in general, then it’s going to be difficult keeping criticism from coming out of your mouth every time you open it.
So how do you change what’s in your heart? There are several typical Christian devotional answers that apply here. Read your Bible more, pray more, fast more, go to church more, serve more, give more, more, more, more and while more of these things are always a great idea, I believe in order to overcome a critical spirit, we need more than more, we need new.
Psalm 51:10 Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right and steadfast spirit within me.
Create and Renew. We need to ask God, like David did, to create in us a new heart that would be, “firm in the purposes of virtue; that would not yield to temptation; that would carry out holy resolutions; that would be steadfast in the service of God” (Barnes 88). We need to ask God to renew a right spirit in us, because even though we are new creations in Christ, wrong spirits still like to hang around.
You can’t change on your own. You can’t, in your own strength, go from a glass-half-empty person to a glass-half-full person. You can’t go from always seeing flaws to always noticing God’s goodness. You can’t create a new heart for yourself. But thankfully, you have a connection. The Connection! You can walk boldly into the throne room and ask Him to create in you a clean heart and to renew a right spirit inside you, and what you thought might take weeks, months, or even a lifetime to overcome, He will change in a moment. Instead of reading and praying to try to run off negativity, you’ll be reading and praying because your clean heart desires to be full of His Word and your right Spirit desires constant communion with Him.
Let’s not be okay with a chart that reads critical. Instead, let God take the places of our hearts that have been tarnished by negativity and allow Him to make them new again. Let’s get our joy, peace, freedom, and victory levels steady again so we can be living testimonies of his goodness.
For a free small group study guide to go along with this article, click here.
Sources:
Barnes, Albert. Notes, Critical, Explanatory, and Practical, on the Book of Psalms. Vol. 2, Harper, 1869
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Sending Your Christian Kids To Public School
Four years ago, I wrote a blog about sending my firstborn off to public school. It is by far the most-read blog I’ve ever published. This tells me there are a lot of Christian mommas out there who go through what I went through.
I was nervous and fearful, and I wished I could afford Christian school, until God showed me something remarkable in Jochebed, the mother of Moses.
She spent three months hiding her baby to save him from being murdered, and when he was too big to continue to hide, she placed him in a basket and sent him floating down a river.
You’d think that during that time she would have been nervous, fearful, and wishing her boy would have been a girl, but she wasn’t.
Hebrews 11:23 By faith Moses, when he was born, was hidden three months by his parents, because they saw he was a beautiful child; and they were not afraid of the king’s command.
Jochebed was not full of fear and regret, wishing that things could have been different. No, she was full of faith!
As a Christian mom sending my child to public school, I felt a little like I was putting him in a basket in the Nile River. I had to choose: fear or faith?
Jochebed inspired me to choose faith.
When I dropped my son off for his first day of kindergarten four years ago, I didn’t shed a tear. I believed that like Psalm 127 says, he was an arrow–an arrow we had spent five years sharpening, an arrow that would go out and fulfill His purpose.
Next week, that kindergartener I dropped off in faith will start third grade, and his little sister will start first grade, and I’ve found myself thinking about Moses and Jochebed again, and how thankful I am that my kids are in the public school system.
Most people would agree that the purpose of sending our children to school is so they can receive an education. We want them to learn how to read, write, and do arithmetic. Bonus points if they learn how to successfully climb a rope, make some friends, and win a class party for collecting the most box tops. But what if our kids have a higher purpose? What if school is more than test scores and learning how to multiply fractions?
Back to Jochebed. She is ultimate #momgoals. She not only had amazing trust and faith in God, but she saw purpose in her kids, from the moment she laid eyes on them.
Hebrews 2:2 The woman became pregnant and gave birth to a son. She saw that he was a special baby and kept him hidden for three months.
Jochebed saw that Moses was a special baby. Other translations say she saw that he was a beautiful baby, but it’s referring to more than the fact that he was a pretty newborn. When she looked at Moses she saw God’s favor on him and knew that she had to save his life because God wanted to use him mightily.
When you look at your kids, what do you see? Do you see purpose in them? Do you realize that the favor of God rests on them and that God wants to use them in mighty ways, just as He did Moses?
Your kids are here for a reason, just like you are here for a reason, and if they attend a public school, they have an amazing opportunity in front of them to start walking in their purpose.
God gave me three words to charge my kids with for the upcoming year. Three words to help fill them with purpose. Three words to send them out on mission each and every day as they hop out of my car and into the halls of their school.
Salt. Light. Love.
Salt
Matthew 5:13 Let me tell you why you are here. You’re here to be salt-seasoning that brings out the God-flavors of this earth.
Our kids need to know why they are here, and as parents, it’s our job to tell them. They are here to be salt!
Salt brings out flavor in food, and it also helps preserve it.
Our kids should start every day thinking about how they have the ability, through their words and actions, to give people a taste of the goodness of God. They get to be like the sample servers at Sam’s Club giving out little treats of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. And as their friends, teachers, and even their enemies get a taste, they fulfill their purpose and people will be drawn to Jesus.
Our kids need to realize if they stay salty they help prevent God’s standards from rotting away. If every Christian parent kept their kids out of public school there would be no students on a mission to preserve the truth. It’s important for our children to recognize that without Christ followers like them, standing for what’s right and living according to the Word of God, God’s presence in their schools will decay.
Light
Matthew 5:14 Here’s another way to put it: You’re here to be light, bringing out the God-colors in the world. God is not a secret to be kept. We’re going public with this, as public as a city on a hill. If I make you light-bearers, you don’t think I’m going to hide you under a bucket, do you? I’m putting you on a light stand. Now that I’ve put you there on a hilltop, on a light stand—shine!
The public school system needs light. It needs more kids who love Jesus and are 100 percent cool with going public with that information. People are living in darkness. Families are a mess. Suicide is the number one injury death in America. There’s so much confusion about gender identity. And on and on. People are looking for answers, and if we stay hidden away in our homes and in our Christian circles, they are going to have a hard time finding those answers. My son has seen two of his friends from school give their lives to Christ this year, and one of those friend’s entire family give their lives to Christ, because he’s decided to be like a city on a hill when it comes to his love for Jesus. God’s made our kids to be light, we have to let them shine!
Love
I Corinthians 13:1 If I could speak all the languages of earth and of angels, but didn’t love others, I would only be a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.
The only chance our kids have at being the salt of the earth and the light of the world is if they love others. In other words, they cannot fulfill their purpose without love.
Sometimes we confuse being salt and light with being snarky and judgmental. I went to public school, and I remember the Christian kids who looked down on everyone. It was obvious they thought they were better and more holy than everyone else. They never made an impact on anyone because it’s God’s kindness that leads men to repentance.
Our kids must understand that their purpose is to love with a love that cares more for others than for themselves, a love that fights for the bottom, a love that isn’t jealous, a love that isn’t prideful, a love that is slow to anger, a love that believes the best, a love that doesn’t give up on people.
Because Moses had a mother who was full of faith and saw purpose in her children, an entire nation got to taste the goodness of God. They were preserved from extinction and miraculously brought out of darkness.
My goodness. What would our schools look like if every classroom had a handful of kids who understood their God-given purpose and were being encouraged to walk in it daily?
We do so much to ensure our kids are ready to go back to school: new shoes, new backpacks and lunchboxes, fresh haircuts, killer first-day-of-school outfits, tax-free school supply shopping, and meet the teacher. That’s all well and good, but let’s be most focused on getting them ready by filling their hearts and minds with their God-given purposes. Let’s make sure they know school is more than AR tests and recess. School is where they get to live out the gospel and experience true joy and fulfillment as they do what they were put on the earth to do!
Let’s let loose our little Moseses and watch God move mightily in and through them, Amen?
Morning Declaration For Your Kids:
I am here for a reason. God has a purpose for me.
I am the salt of the earth.
Wherever I go, I help people taste and see that the Lord is good.
I am called to make sure God’s way of doing things doesn’t pass away.
I am the light of the world.
People see Jesus in me. I won’t keep God a secret.
I will bring light to the darkness around me.
Love is my goal.
I know I can’t lead anyone to Jesus without His love working through me.
God’s love never gives up and cares more for others than for self.
Love is not jealous or cocky.Love fights for the bottom and is not “me first.”
Love is slow to anger and doesn’t keep score when people mess up.
Love doesn’t rejoice when others are hurting.
Love trusts God always.
Love doesn’t look back and believes the best.
Today I will be Salt, Light, and Love.
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Not Today: How To Fight The Fight
Effective ministry happens when people are real. So allow me to be completely honest: I don’t know very much about boxing. What I do know is based on Rocky (one of my favorite movies ever, believe it or not), Million Dollar Baby (ugly, ugly, ugly cried when I saw that in the theater), and of course Billy Blanks. Tae Bo, anyone? But a few days ago, as I sat on an airplane and asked the Holy Spirit to show me what to write for our next HIS small group curriculum, I remembered something I heard the wonderful, amazing, anointed Priscilla Shirer say a few years ago that has since been repeated somewhere close to a billion times by pastors and teachers everywhere.
She said, “We are not fighting FOR a victory, we are fighting FROM a victory!” Everyone cheered and amen’d and tweeted. Rightly so. It’s a powerful statement. A true statement. A gospel statement. But right after I remembered that phrase, I heard the Holy Spirit whisper, “Fighting FROM a victory only works IF you are fighting, and many of my girls aren’t fighting!”
Ephesians 6:12 tells us that we are not fighting against flesh-and-blood enemies, but WE ARE FIGHTING against evil rulers and authorities of the unseen world, against mighty powers in this dark world, and against evil spirits in the heavenly places.
Satan would love for us to go through our days unaware of the spiritual warfare taking place in our lives. He would love for us to ignore, excuse, or comply with the battles he sends our way, and sadly, that’s often what we do.
I am slightly obsessed with Hillsong United’s Wonder album, especially the track, “Not Today.” It’s a perfect mixture of wake-up call and battle cry. Look at this beautifully-written bridge with me:
Your love stood down death
Crushed the devil’s head
Fear is just a liar running out of breath
The fight beneath Your feet
I’m standing on Jesus’ Name
So let the devil know not today
Let the devil know not today
Not now not ever again
Jesus, let the devil know not today
The wake-up call comes from the reminder that Jesus stood down death and crushed the devil’s head and that fear is just a liar running out of breath! (Insert all the praise-hands emojis here!) The battle cry is found in the words, NOT TODAY.
When Satan calls you into the boxing ring, do you throw in the towel, and say, have your way? Or do you put on your gloves, boldly step into the ring, and declare NOT TODAY.
Friends, we have got to stop letting the devil walk all over us. Jesus came too far and paid too great a price for us to be getting our clocks cleaned!
James 4:7 says, So humble yourselves before God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.
The word resist comes from two Greek words: stand and against.
Now, like I said earlier I’m not a boxing expert, but I do know that a boxer’s stance is very important, and I studied several articles which backed this up. We see boxers throwing punches and assume that all of their power comes from their arm, but really the arm is only the final stage of the punch. A boxer’s power comes for the soles of their feet and is transmitted through their body and out of their fists. Footwork is also crucial to defense. Titleboxing.com said this about The Greatest, “To watch Ali’s feet carry him in and out of trouble was a thing of beauty. Even as a heavyweight, his grace of movement and lightness on his feet was an enormous part of his success. A small shuffle, a slight shift in weight, can mean the difference in an opponent’s landing a punch or missing it. Good footwork can dictate the pace of the fight and the distance that war is waged at” (Ward).
If we are going to be skilled, successful fighters, we have to pay attention to our feet. James says we are to STAND against or resist the devil.
How’s your footwork? Are you standing firm like James 4:7 talks about?
If you ARE NOT standing against the enemy then you ARE NOT resisting and if you ARE NOT resisting then you ARE consenting. When the enemy wars against you with fear, depression, anxiety, lies, discouragement, or any number of his strategies, and you don’t war back, it’s as if you are offering him mutual consent. Mutual consent is when all relevant parties agree to a proposal, contract, or transaction. It is often referred to as a “meeting of the minds.”
That sent shivers down my spine. This is serious, serious business. When we don’t resist the devil, we are engaged in a meeting of the minds with someone who seeks to steal, kill, and destroy our lives.
I’ve engaged in a meeting of the minds with the enemy many times. He’s come at me with thoughts about my husband that I didn’t stand against. Those thoughts did exactly what he designed for them to do: drive a wedge between me and my other half! He’s come at me with thoughts about friends that I didn’t stand against. He’s come at me with thoughts about me not being an adequate mom. He’s come at me with thoughts of fear, doubt, and lies to keep me from moving forward in faith. He’s come at me with thoughts of self-pity, and I’ve cuddled up to those thoughts like they were a warm blanket from Restoration Hardware.
We are not called to cuddle with the schemes of Satan. We are not called to identify with the lies he fires our way. We are not called to take a seat and get comfortable and allow his plans for us to unfold; we are called to stand firm and resist.
Hopefully, by now you get that we are to stand, but how? How do we stand? Ephesians 6:14-15, has us covered:
Stand your ground, putting on the belt of truth and the body armor of God’s righteousness. For shoes, put on the peace that comes from the Good News so that you will be fully prepared. In addition to all of these, hold up the shield of faith to stop the fiery arrows of the devil. Put on salvation as your helmet, and take the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.
The Armor of God: every Sunday School teacher’s favorite six-week lesson plan, but it’s more than just a fun lesson for kids. “Each aspect of this symbolic armor answers to a specific dynamic within the Christian life that enables us to stand against spiritual attack” (Guzik).
Allow me to skip over the symbolism and get straight to the specific dynamics that enable us to stand:
- The truth of God’s Word must hold our world together.
- We must view ourselves through the lens of the completed work of the cross and see ourselves how God sees us.
- We must have steady minds, free from fear and full of peace which comes from believing that God loves us and cares for us.
- We must be hearers and doers of God’s Word so that we are full of the kind of faith that not only blocks the attacks of Satan, but sends them back where they came from.
- We must have hope, convinced that even in the darkest of situations, our God saves.
- We must know how to wield the active, powerful and effective Word of God.**
The Big Six: Truth, Righteousness, Peace, Faith, Salvation, and God’s Word.
Did you know that there are only six types of punches in boxing? That doesn’t seem like very many punches to step into a ring with, but with those six punches a fighter can deliver more than a thousand combinations. Similar to the way a telephone has only ten digits available, but with different combinations of those digits we can create eight billion different phone numbers.
We have six pieces of armor, which may not seem like enough to stand against the schemes and strategies of the enemy, but with those six pieces of armor you can deliver thousands of combinations that will keep you standing and send the devil running.
Think about the endless possibilities you have as you combine those six pieces of armor!
Jab-Jab-Cross. Faith-Faith-Peace.
Jab-Cross-Left hook. Faith-Peace-God’s Word.
Jab-Right uppercut-Left hook-Right hand. Faith-Righteousness-God’s Word-Truth.
Just like a boxer spends time training and learning all six punches, from the jab to the right hook, we need to spend time training and learning about the six pieces of armor, so we can confidently stand our ground and start putting together some total-knockout combinations.
Take all the help you can get, every weapon God has issued, so that when it’s all over but the shouting you’ll still be on your feet. Truth, righteousness, peace, faith, and salvation are more than words. Learn how to apply them. You’ll need them throughout your life. God’s Word is an indispensable weapon. (Ephesians 6:13-18, MSG)
Fighting FROM a victory, only works if you are FIGHTING. God’s given you all you need to stand, to resist, and to fight, so stop letting the devil have his way and start declaring, NOT TODAY!
Click here to download a free small group discussion guide to go with this article.
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Always Singing A New Song
My hands are roughly the size of a nine-year-old boy’s, and because I bite my nails (I know, I know) and rarely treat myself to a Mani Pedi, they don’t look a whole lot different than a nine-year-old boy’s hands either. My big brother, Michael, has gigantic hands—I’m talking Shaquille O’Neal gigantic hands. Perfect for impressing all my grade school friends with his ability to palm a basketball, and for dominating everyone in the game of Mercy.
Remember Mercy? It was a classic inside-recess or back-of-the-school-bus game; one I’m sure has (thankfully) died out because now kids never have to experience a second of boredom—hello, smart phones. To compete in Mercy, you would grab hands with someone, interlocking your fingers with theirs, and then try to bend that person’s fingers back in a way that inflicts so much pain that they have to surrender by crying out, “MERCY!” If you get your opponent to shout mercy first, it’s game over. You let go of their hand, and you win.
My brother, with his oversized mitts, could be “Mercy Champion of The World” if he wanted to pursue the illustrious title, but he’s still looking for some sponsors. Maybe John Stamos would be interested. Track with me here for a second. When you see John Stamos, you immediately think, Uncle Jesse, and when you see Uncle Jesse, you immediately think, “Have MERCY!” Boom. I think I’m on to something.
MERCY is a word that I’ve heard all my life: on the playground, while watching Full House, and of course, in church services. It’s a word that washed over me in a very uneventful way when I heard it or read it. It’s a word I’d grown too familiar with.
About a year and a half ago, my husband and I planted a church called New Song in Oklahoma City. My eight-year-old son asked me a funny question the other morning, as we were walking out the door to head to church. “Mom, when New Song is like a hundred years old, will we change the name to Old Song?” I for real LOL’d and then quickly answered, “No buddy, it will always be New Song, because God’s mercies are NEW every morning.” I then tried to explain what mercies were and found myself bumbling around like an idiot.
Why couldn’t I define a word I knew so well in a way that my kids would understand it? Perhaps it was because I didn’t know it as well as I thought I did. Time to dig in.
I probably quote Lamentations 3:23 at least once a week while I’m worshipping God in my quiet time, “Thank you Lord, that your mercies are new every morning!” but what does that mean? What does mercy mean to you?
Maybe when you think of God’s mercy, you think about a God who has a bigger hand than you do, yet chooses not to crush your life because He’s full of mercy. While God does hold the world in His hands, His mercy is so much more than allowing us to not be crushed.
The word mercy is a rich word, a weighty word, a word that should stir our hearts to worship every time we come into contact with it. God’s mercy defined is His goodness, kindness, faithfulness, beauty, zeal, and favor directed at you and me—you and me who, quite frankly, do not deserve any of those things.
Now that we have a more amplified understanding of the word mercy, I want you to look at some words that are used to describe God’s mercy in scripture. This is quite a list of adjectives that you should totally write down somewhere:
Great + Rich + Unfailing + Plenteous + Abundant + Sure + Everlasting + Tender + Fresh + Higher Than The Sky + All Over The Earth.
Don’t miss this! HIS MERCY, which encompasses His goodness, kindness, faithfulness, beauty, zeal, and favor toward us, IS, according to His Word, great, rich, unfailing, sure, everlasting, tender, fresh, higher than the sky, yet all over the earth!
Insert praise hands emoji here!
Mercy is not only the absence of punishment we have earned, but the presence of the emblems that personify God’s loving nature. God doesn’t just give mercy, He is mercy, and because God is an everlasting Father, His mercy toward us will never run out. There’s nothing you can do to bend His fingers back or twist His arm enough to make Him let go of your hand, and on the flip side, He’s not torturing you to get you to call for mercy.
God’s mercy is Him pouring His life into our lives even though we aren’t worthy! And He does that on a daily basis if we’ll open up and receive.
Understanding the fresh mercies that await us every morning will cause our hearts to burst forth with a fresh expression of praise every morning.
Psalm 96:1 says, “Sing to the Lord a new song.”
It’s not necessarily talking about a song no one has ever heard—let’s face it: we don’t all have the songwriting skills of Joel Houston—but rather a song that’s fresh from your heart. You may have sung “10,000 Reasons” close to 10,000 times, but it can still be a new song if you sing it from a heart that has a new revelation of the new mercies God has graced you with yet again!
Discoveries of God’s goodness, kindness, faithfulness, beauty, zeal, and favor await you today and tomorrow and the next day. Find them and you’ll always be singing a NEW SONG.
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Desiring The Gifts Of The Spirit
“The walls of the heart are elastic, and desire expands them.”
That gets my vote for the most eye-opening sentence I’ve read this year.
A few weeks ago, I was on my back on my bedroom floor, trying to catch my breath after a dreaded cardio workout, and trying to hear from God. I knew I only had a few minutes until my kid’s internal roosters cock-a-doodle-do’d and sent them down the long hall way from their bedrooms to mine. I held my phone in the air above my face while I read through a familiar chapter in Romans. A certain verse seemed to stand out from the rest. I swiped over to a commentary and that’s when I read those eye-opening words, “The walls of the heart are elastic, and desire expands them.” That got me off my back. I sat up, and the Holy Spirit started to unpack mountains of truth in the blink of an eye. His message was loud and clear:
Expand Your heart, daughter. Desire more.
The Holy Spirit is an extravagant gift giver. The focus of I Corinthians 12 is all about spiritual gifts. The word of wisdom, the word of knowledge, faith, the gifts of healing, the working of miracles, prophecy, discerning of spirits, tongues, and the interpretation of tongues.
Each of these gifts has a two-fold purpose–one: to glorify Jesus, and two: to strengthen and encourage other people.
We are told more than once in scripture to earnestly desire these gifts. In the words of Dwight K. Schrute, “Question…” How are you doing with that? Be completely honest with yourself. When was the last time you were craving, desiring, or aching to unwrap one of those gifts?
Some do not desire the gifts of the Spirit because they simply don’t understand them or have never heard that they should desire them. Maybe you’ve assumed these gifts are reserved for special people on a ministry staff. Others don’t desire the gifts because of selfishness. Most Christians spend more time working on a better “me” instead of looking to build others up.
Think about the purpose of the gifts again: to glorify Jesus and to strengthen and encourage other people. These gifts have little to do with the one who is told to desire them and much to do with others. I wonder if we would crave spiritual gifts in a greater way if they were for our personal gain. #ThingsThatMakeYouGoHmmm
The call of this devotional is to expand the walls of our hearts with a desire for spiritual gifts, because when we make room in our elastic-lined hearts for the gifts of the Spirit, we will begin to operate in them. Our actions will begin to glorify Jesus and encourage others.
Let’s quickly look at each of the gifts mentioned in I Corinthians 12 in order to create a deeper hunger in ourselves for them.
● Gift of Wisdom: The Holy Spirit working through us so we can hear and speak wise counsel, especially in an important situation.
● Gift of Knowledge: The unique ability to share knowledge that could only be revealed supernaturally and to know what is true.
● Gift of Faith: The ability to fully trust God in any situation.
● Gift of Healing: The Spirit working through us to pray for the sick and see them healed.
● Miraculous Powers: The Holy Spirit working through us to “override” the laws of nature and divinely intervene in situations.
● Gift of Prophecy: The Holy Spirit working through us to build up, encourage, comfort, and strengthen others in a naturally supernatural way.
● Distinguishing Between the Spirits: The Holy Spirit working through us to recognize what is influencing people and to decipher what is of the Spirit and what is not.
● Gift of Tongues: A personal language of prayer given by God, so a believer can communicate with Him beyond the limits of their own knowledge and understanding.
● Gift of Interpretation: Allows tongues to benefit those, other than the one speaking in tongues, by interpreting the heavenly language into an earthly language.
Now, some of you may already be wondering which gifts you have or you’re trying to decide which gifts you want. I know they are in list form, but don’t look at this list like a sandwich bag at Which Wich where you get to decide which gifts sound good to you. That’s the Holy Spirit’s call. More important than knowing the name of the gift that’s at work through you, or choosing the one which suits you best, is the desire to be used by God however He sees fit.
Make your prayer be, “Lord I want to bring glory to Jesus today, and I want to strengthen and encourage others.” Let your desire for the gifts grow and expand the walls of your heart, and as you do that, you can expect that God will give you the desires of your heart. He will begin to use you, and you’ll begin to discover, pinpoint, and appreciate the gifts in operation in your life.
One gift we are told to especially desire is the gift of prophecy (I Corinthians 14:1). Let’s make that our focus this month.
Prophecy is simply allowing the Holy Spirit to work through us to build up, encourage, comfort, and strengthen others in a naturally supernatural way.
That’s one of my favorite phrases ever: naturally supernatural.
We often see the Holy Spirit as spooky, but He’s not. He wants to work supernaturally through what’s natural to you.
If it’s natural for you to text a friend, the Holy Spirit can supernaturally work through a text message. I get supernatural texts quite often. This morning a friend texted me to let me know she was praying for me and that God wanted me to know I was covered and loved. I had no idea, and my friend had no idea, that my afternoon would bring some very stressful things my way. The words in that text came back to my heart and comforted me. The Holy Spirit prophesied to me, through her, via text.
Ladies, let’s desire the gifts. Let’s desire to glorify Jesus and encourage and strengthen others: our spouses, children, friends, our small group, co-workers, people we serve with at church, whoever the Lord brings to our attention. Let’s not make this a “part” of our everyday lives, segregated and compartmentalized, rather, let this be who we are: glorying Jesus and encouraging others.
For a free small group study guide to go along with this article click here.
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Pressed: A Good Friday Piece
On Sunday, we’ll celebrate Easter and the fact that our Savior conquered the grave, is alive and seated in Heaven, bridging the gap between our Father and us. But there’s no Easter if there’s no Good Friday, and I suppose that’s why such a dark day can be called good.
On the original Good Friday, Jesus shared a very vulnerable moment with His closest friends in the Garden of Gethsemane. He told them His soul was crushed with grief to the point of death and asked them to keep watch as He went a little deeper into the garden to get on His knees and seek His Father’s face.
The amount of pressure Jesus was facing that night is something we can’t fully wrap our minds around. The cross was near. He knew that very soon He would have to submit Himself to the punishment of sin. He would have to taste death for all mankind. The loneliness of the grave and the horror of hell surrounded Him and pressed Him on every side. It was not well with His soul. His soul was crushed with grief, His heart ready to break.
Luke’s gospel tells us that as Jesus was in agony, and earnestly praying, His sweat turned into great drops of blood falling upon the ground. I’m sure as the weight of the world quite literally pressed in on Him, it was even hard to breathe.
Gethsemane, the garden where Jesus experienced this tremendous pressing, means the place where olive oil is pressed. Olive oil was a hot commodity, used primarily for keeping lamps fueled. If I need some olive oil, I just head to Target, rarely, if ever, stopping to think about the process of how the oil came to be, but there is a process. It’s changed since Jesus walked the earth. In His day, olives were gathered in rough sacks and stacked on top of one another. A beam was lowered onto the stack and increasing weight was added to the end of the beam to press oil from the olives. The more pressure, the more oil would drip.
Gethsemane had seen pressing before. It had seen olives burst under pressure and drip, but it had never seen a man pressed like this, pressed to the point of dripping blood, sweat, and tears.
There’s a beautiful picture in all of this I want you to see. Hebrews 1:9 tells us God anointed Jesus with the oil of gladness or the everlasting joy of the Holy Spirit. That night in the garden, as Jesus was pressed like an olive, the oil of gladness dripped from His brow. The more pressure, the more oil–and Jesus was under the greatest amount of pressure in the history of the world. His drip would turn into a pour. On the cross He would pour out His blood to wash away our sins and then He would pour out His Spirit, the oil that we need to keep our lamps burning until He returns or calls us home.
God has called you to be the light of the world. A lamp lighting the way for your family, friends, co-workers, neighbors, and anyone else God brings across your path, but without that pure pressed oil of gladness, you can’t fulfill your purpose. You will not only lose your way, but you won’t be able to help anyone else find his or her way.
Proverbs 31:18 says of the virtuous woman, her lamp goes not out, but it burns on continually through the night. It burns on through trouble, privation, and sorrow.
If we are going to burn bright without burning out, we have to get a revelation of how much we need that oil of gladness, how much we need the Holy Spirit whom Jesus poured out for us.
Romans 12:11 Don’t burn out; keep yourselves fueled and aflame.
Notice the verse says, keep yourselves fueled and aflame. I can’t keep your lamp burning for you, and you can’t keep mine burning for me. So how do we keep ourselves running on the Oil of Gladness? We simply invite the Holy Spirit to come and fill our lives Every. Single. Day. We head to the garden, and we receive what has already been pressed out for us.
When you are tired of fighting, when you feel as though the demands placed on you exceed the resources available to you, when trouble, privation, and sorrow come your way, if your lamp is fueled by the oil of gladness, your lamp will not go out.
This weekend as we celebrate Easter and remember Good Friday, know that Jesus was pressed for you, and because He was full of The Spirit and anointed with Gladness that is what poured out of Him. As you receive that same anointing by grace through faith, as you fuel yourself with the Holy Spirit, when you find yourself pressed, realize the same will pour out of you.
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Letting Go Of The Good
One of the most majestic creatures in North America is the bald eagle–so majestic in fact that the species is not only the national bird, but also the national animal of the United States of America. I’ve never seen an eagle in all its glory, soaring through the sky: that striking white head, angry yellow eyes, and those impressive seven-and-a-half foot long wings spread against a bright blue sky. Animal Planet though. I love shows about animals because oftentimes the Holy Spirit will reveal things to me as I listen to the pleasant-voiced narrator talk about creatures that my creator created!
Something I was surprised to find out about eagles is that drowning is a common cause of death for them. We’ve all seen footage of the mighty birds swooping down from the sky and snatching a shiny salmon from the water with its talons. Sometimes, though, the salmon is too heavy, and if the eagle is stubborn enough, he won’t let go of his dinner. The fish will actually pull the bird down into the water and drown him. To prevent a watery grave and live to soar another day, all the eagle has to do is let go, but we all know it’s hard to let go of a good thing.
In Genesis 22 we read about God asking Isaac to let go of his son, to sacrifice and kill his son, his son who was most definitely a good thing! Isaac was not just a child, he was a promise. God told Abraham that it was through Isaac that the covenant descendants who outnumbered the grains of sand promised to him would be born.
Since Isaac did not have any children, God was asking Abraham to let go of a promise that had yet to be fulfilled. He had to learn the difference between trusting the promise and trusting the Promiser. I think sometimes we feel it’s up to us to bring God’s promises to pass, even if we have to step out of God’s will to do so. We try to lean on our own understanding instead of fully leaning into God.
When God asks us to let go of something good– a job, a home, finances, a relationship, a promotion, a promise– can we trust Him?
There was no hesitation in Abraham. None of this made a lick of sense to his natural mind, but he didn’t wait until it did to obey. The Bible tells us that he rose EARLY to head to the place where he would sacrifice his promise. Even though the scriptures never mention how he feels, you know he had to have been feeling so unbelievably scared, hurt, and confused, but he was a faith man so he wasn’t going to be led by his feelings.
You all know the end of the story. Because Abraham chose to let go, God provided a ram for the sacrifice, Isaac lived, and the promise was fulfilled.
Three summers ago God asked me to let go of a good job. I had been working for a really great family ministry going on ten years. It was the perfect job for me. I had the best boss ever, I could work from home, and use my God-given gifts to build the kingdom. Plus, it provided a nice flow of extra income for our family. It was a good thing for so many reasons, but I knew I had to obey. It didn’t make sense to me and it didn’t make sense to my husband, but I knew it was what I had to do.
Five months later we moved to Oklahoma City to pioneer New Song Church. Shortly after we moved, I understood why God asked me to let go of that job. He knew what was coming before I did. He knew I would not be able to stay afloat working for the family ministry and caring for my own family while helping my husband with the huge task of planting a church. I would have been trying to hold on to too many good things and I would have drowned.
Hear this today friends: God created us to soar high on wings like eagles. Do you feel as if you are soaring through life, or are you drowning? When you look at the sum of your weeks, are more days spent gasping for air or breathing in God’s life?
I’ll be honest, this week has been more of a drowning than soaring week for me so I’m asking the Lord to show me what I need to let go of. I can’t decide without Him. Everything I’m holding onto is good, but I’m holding onto more good than I can handle at the moment.
Being a Christian means daily surrendering our lives to Christ–all of us, the good, the bad, and the ugly. Sometimes I think surrendering the good is even more of a challenge than surrendering the bad or the ugly, but all means all. Can He really have it all? Will you let go of the good when God asks you to?
Be warned, you may feel like you are letting others down in the process of letting go of something good. I felt like I was letting my family down sacrificing that paycheck. I felt like I was letting my boss down by resigning my position. I’m sure Abraham felt like he was letting his wife Sarah down as he was taking their promised son up the mountain to sacrifice him. But again, he wasn’t moved by his feelings. We need to be like Abraham, unmoved by the feelings derived from the fear of disappointing people. We can’t let our emotions dictate whether or not we are going to let go when God says let go.
It’s not God’s plan for us to feel overwhelmed. Matthew 11 says that the burden, the call that He has placed on our lives, is light. It’s a call that we can carry while still soaring. When I start to sink, it’s time to re-evaluate. It’s time to invite the Holy Spirit in and allow Him to speak into my schedule and show me what I need to let go of.
Maybe for you it’s letting go of one of your children’s five different extra-curricular activities or resigning your role as PTA president. Maybe it’s letting go of some of the money in your savings account to take your family on a much-needed vacation or passing up that promotion. Maybe it’s letting go of training for that marathon or pushing pause on that business idea. Maybe it’s being okay with a messy house for the weekend or letting go of your kids a few hours every week so you can spend one-on-one time with your spouse. Maybe like Abraham, it’s letting go of a promise.
Know that whenever God asks you to let go of the good, if you are faithful to obey, He is faithful to carry out His perfect and pleasing will for your life. After all if it’s not God, it’s not really good.
For a free small group study guide to go along with this article click here.
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Bubble Kids : The Downside To Overprotecting Our Children
I am the mom who cries when her babies get shots at the doctor’s office, and yeah, I’m also the mom who gets her kids vaccinated. (Insert shocked emoji face here!) I hope we can still be friends.
When my oldest son Gus was three, I took him to the dentist for a checkup and found out he had eight cavities. Yep, eight. I promise, I take good care of my children, I just had no idea that a preschooler was not ready to wield a toothbrush on his own. #FirstKidProbs. He took the brunt of all our first-time parenting faux pas, but by the grace of God he’s turning out just fine. And you’ll be happy to know my second and third child are filling free. When Gus went back to get his mouth filled with silver, I asked my husband to take off work for the appointment so I didn’t have to see my little buddy all gassed up for dental surgery. I would have been a blubbering mess.
I love the scene in the movie Storks where the little pink-haired baby starts to cry while Tulip, the woman in charge of delivering the pink-haired baby, tries to ignore her. The film cuts to a sequence of caring mommas throughout history protecting their babies all while REO Speedwagon’s “Keep On Loving You” plays in the background. It cuts back to Tulip whose maternal instincts kick in and she can’t take it anymore. She MUST comfort the crying pink-haired baby!
Mothers do not like to see their children in pain, physically or emotionally. It’s part of our genetic makeup! God could not watch as Jesus hung on the cross. He had to turn His face away.
Like the women in the Storks sequence who were literally shielding their babies, we do our best to shield our kids from anything that might cause their hearts to ache.
Last October I got a fun little surprise in the form of two pink lines. I was pregnant! We had just packed away the crib and decided to wait another three or four years for the final installment of Blount children, so I was shocked, but thrilled at the same time. I love being pregnant, and I love newborns, and I knew our kid’s excitement would be through the roof when we shared our news with them. I took two blood tests to confirm and the doctor said my levels looked great and that he would see me in nine weeks. I was already showing, and I knew I couldn’t wait nine more weeks to tell our friends and family, so about two weeks after we found out, I planned a big scavenger hunt that ended with a little video where we told the kids a new baby would be joining our family in June!
I have NEVER seen joy hit my kids like that before, and you should know they are very happy kids who have had a very happy, Disneyland-filled life. But this was something they had been asking for and praying for and thinking about for a while. Our oldest cried genuine tears of joy. Our middle jumped up and down and squealed for a good five minutes straight. And our youngest just kept hugging everyone because she knew we were all so happy. It’s a moment I’ll never forget even though I totally blew it and did not hit the record button on my phone to capture it all on video.
The new baby was all my kids could talk about. The papers they brought home from school had drawings and notes on the back of them about their new brother, since they had already decided it was going to be a boy. They had to say good morning and good night to my puffy tummy. And they prayed sincere prayers, asking God to help the baby grow big and strong and healthy.
Three days of celebrating came to an abrupt halt after I miscarried. As shocked as I was to find out I was pregnant, I was even more shocked to miscarry. My third pregnancy ended when I had to deliver our son stillborn, and after that I prayed and believed and trusted God that I would never lose another baby again. And I was convinced I wouldn’t. But I did.
Of course I was heartbroken over the loss of life, but the thing that hurt the most was knowing that I was going to have to tell my kids. There was no way around this. I would have to watch their hearts break.
I was so mad at myself. Why? Why didn’t I follow the pregnancy announcement protocol? Why didn’t I wait longer to tell the kids? I could have saved them. I could have shielded them. I could have kept them in their bubble.
I’ll never forget sitting in my kitchen the afternoon of the miscarriage, sorting out Bingo cards for a Halloween party at my kid’s school that I was in charge of hosting later that day, my eyes blurry from all the tears. I knew that in just a few short hours, after school was over, we were going to have to sit the kids down and let them know that life isn’t perfect. As I punched out Charlie Brown bingo markers and beat myself up for seemingly jumping the gun with the pregnancy announcement, the Holy Spirit came and does what the Holy Spirit was sent to do. He comforted me with these words, “You can’t always shield your kids from heartache, but you can show them how to overcome.”
In other words, what’s done is done. You can’t protect them from this one, but you can use this situation to help them see that the greater One lives in them, and because of that, they can find victory in the midst of a terrible loss.
After I painfully smiled my way through the class party and got the kid’s home from school, we sat them down in the living room and broke the news. They wept and moaned and cried for what felt like an eternity. Josh and I cried with them and held them and let them cry until they were ready to talk. They were so confused. How could this happen? Why did this happen? I didn’t feel equipped to answer those questions, because honestly I didn’t know how and why it happened, and I still don’t. It still doesn’t make sense. But in that moment we told them what we DID know: God is faithful, no matter what. God never leaves us nor forsakes us. God will heal our broken hearts. God will turn this sad story into a happy one.
We stayed in our living room for hours that night and talked about heaven and the hope we have in Jesus, and what I thought would be one of the worst nights of my life ended up being one of the best, because that night I got to see that my children’s faith in God was immovable, even in the midst of a storm. Their eight and five-year-old hearts held tightly to the promises of God. The Jesus they have always sung about and read about and talked about became even more real to them that October night.
John 16:33 says, “Here on earth we (me, you, my kids, your kids) will have many trials and sorrows.” But then it encourages us with this, “take heart, because Jesus has overcome the world.”
When our kids are faced with real-life challenges, our tendency is to shield them from as much pain as possible. We don’t want them to ever have to experience hurt feelings, rejection, not making a sports team, the death of someone they love, disappointment, or anything else that would cause their little hearts to hurt, but sometimes we shield them from too much and they grow up never getting a chance to fully lean on God.
Psalm 103 tells us to lean not on our own understanding, but to trust in the Lord with all our hearts. You can’t expect to ever stop leaning on your own understanding if you live in a world where everything makes sense, and I fear that’s the kind of world we try to create for our children.
But what if we let them face some challenges? What if we stop trying to shield them from every single thing and start giving them opportunities to put their trust in the Lord? I think we would raise the fiercest generation of sons and daughters the world has ever seen. A generation who knows how to get back up when they get knocked down. A generation whose faith in God is real, tested, and unshakable. A generation who knows where to turn when the wind and waves come. A generation full of sure-footed, steady-handed, battle-worthy conquerors.
The last thing my eight-year-old said to me that night as I tucked him into bed was, “Mom, this has been the saddest day of my life…but I will never stop trusting God.”
If there are no rough roads to walk, no mountains to climb, and no battles to fight, our children miss out on the God of John chapter 16, the God who has overcome the world.
Mommas, love, protect, and defend your children, but when the Spirit leads you to, lower that heavy shield so God can display His glory in the lives of your children.
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Welcome To The Restoration Business
I know I’m not the only one who would love to share a best friends necklace with Joanna Gaines–you know the type where each friend wears a half? She could wear the BE FRIE part, and I would wear the ST NDS part. We could feed goats and shop at Anthropologie together. It would be great.
I admire the Fixer Upper star’s passion, her joy, her hair, the crush she still has on Chip, her simplicity, her testimony, and her amazing success as a #girlboss. I mean she turned Waco (yeah, Waco!) into a tourist destination, and a love for shiplap into a million dollar brand! She’s killin’ it.
From her best-selling book to the darling Magnolia Market, her claim to fame was birthed out of an ability to restore an awful house into a dream home.
Restore: To put in order, bring back to former condition, to mend, to strengthen, perfect, complete, make one what he or she ought to be.
A restored car, a piece of furniture, or in Joanna’s case, a restored home, are all something to see, but nothing can compare to the sight of a restored life.
Galatians 6:1 Brethren (or Sistren!), if any person is overtaken in misconduct or sin of any sort, you who are spiritual [who are responsive to and controlled by the Spirit] should set him right and restore and reinstate him, without any sense of superiority and with all gentleness, keeping an attentive eye on yourself, lest you should be tempted also.
Welcome to the restoration business, sweethearts! I’ve heard the saying, “God is in the restoration business,” many times, and God IS in the restoration business, but God always, always, always works through people, and when it comes to restoring individuals, those in sin or overtaken by wrong thinking, He’s put that responsibility on Spirit-led believers.
I think it’s safe to say that most of us don’t like confrontation, and in an effort to avoid awkward conversations with the people we do life with, we bow out of the command to RESTORE and give in to the world’s ways, which are to IGNORE or CLOSE THE DOOR.
When we see someone going down the wrong path, not living according to the Word, being too hard on themselves, working too hard and not honoring God’s command to rest, letting fear dictate their decisions, hurting others feelings, not honoring their spouse, comparing themselves to everyone else, grumbling and complaining constantly, letting their emotions rule their lives, seeing their kids as burdens and treating them that way, in an unhealthy dating relationship, making poor financial decisions, overtaken in misconduct or sin of any kind, the scripture does not say we are to butt out, make excuses for them, or cut them off; it says we are to RESTORE them.
Restore: To put in order, bring back to former condition, to mend, to strengthen, perfect, complete, make one what he or she ought to be.
To be the voice in this community that God has called us to be, we are going to have to purpose to be women who have mastered the art of restoration. We are going to have to turn off our default “ignore” settings. We are going to have to realize that making excuses for people doesn’t help them, it hurts them. And we are going to have to offer grace on top of grace on top of some more grace.
Now, along with the command to restore, in the same verse, we get three VERY important guidelines for how to enter into a situation where someone needs mending to take place in their life.
- Without any sense of superiority. When the Spirit leads you to restore someone, the goal is not to show them how awesome you are and how off the mark they are. The goal is for them to see you bow low and humble yourself. Be vulnerable. The restoration process will be cut short if we are concerned about presenting our ideal self to the person we want to see strengthened because as Jess Connoly says, “Our ideal self is not our most influential self.” Lay down your pride. It’s okay to let the person you are mending know that you aren’t perfect either. We all fall short of the glory of God. Set aside any desire for people to see you as their superior and you’ll be amazed at how quickly they let their guard down. A great way to demonstrate you aren’t on a power trip is to ask the person for permission to speak into an area of their life which you are concerned about.
- With all gentleness. Not some gentleness and some sassiness, but ALL gentleness. Gentleness is closely tied to humbleness. It comes from an awareness of our own weaknesses and proclivity for mistakes. Proverbs 15:11 says, “A gentle answer turns away wrath, a harsh word stirs up anger.” Watch your tone, your body language, and your facial expressions. An angry person who feels they are being attacked or put down is not going to walk away restored, but probably more off track than before you brought up the issue.
- Keeping an attentive eye on yourself. Before having conversations that are restorative in nature, take a good look at your intentions. Check your heart and make sure your concern for this person is coming from a place of love and concern, because if your motive is not pure, they will see right through you, hindering your chances of having any kind of influence in their life.
We all have blind spots, and I’m learning to appreciate people who care enough about me to gently point out things in my life that are broken and need to be reset.
Not too long ago a close friend, through tears, told me she missed the way things used to be between us. I was so caught up with work and kids and figuring out how to pastor a church and lead well that I was overlooking a relationship that I valued and that breathed life into me. I’m so thankful my sister in Christ did not ignore what was happening, or get angry with me and shut me out, but instead she made a way for restoration to take place in my life and in our friendship.
Part of our call as HIS heart, hands, and daughters is to, “Love from the center of who we are; don’t fake it. Run for dear life from evil; hold on for dear life to good. Be good friends who love deeply; practice playing second fiddle” (Romans 12:9-1).
Good friends who love deeply from the center of who they are in Christ see beauty in restoration. When the Spirit asks, “Do you have the guts to take on a fixer upper?” we respond with joy and excitement because it’s our delight to be a doer of the Word. It fills us with great purpose to know that God wants to use us to take broken things and make them beautiful. We don’t shy away, we don’t push away, we lead the way. Like Joanna, make restoration your claim to fame.
For a free small group study guide to go along with this article click here.
Love Responds
“9-1-1, what’s your emergency?”
We’ve all heard those four words before, either while watching reruns of COPS or on the other end of the phone after you’ve dialed for help. I’ve never had to dial those three numbers, but I’ve known them by heart as long as I can remember, and I’ve made it a point to make sure my kids know them, too.
But the National Emergency Number Association hasn’t always existed. In fact, there were ninety-two long years between the first ever phone call made by Alexander Graham Bell and the first ever phone call made to 9-1-1. Prior to 1968, if you wanted to report an emergency, you had to dial your local precinct.
Everything changed after 28-year-old Kitty Genovese was murdered while she was on her way to her New York City apartment after a late-night bartending shift. A few weeks after Kitty’s tragic and senseless death, The New York Times reported that 38 witnesses heard Kitty’s screams for help, screams that went on for 30 minutes, yet help never arrived. The number of bystanders has since been disputed, but the fact that several people failed to respond remains.
Where was the breakdown? Why didn’t Kitty’s neighbors get out of bed and pick up the phone to call the police upon hearing her horrific screams? Some claim they did. Some reported they didn’t want to get involved. Some figured someone else would make the call. Some took cues from the other neighbors they observed doing nothing and decided to do nothing as well.
Kitty’s complacent neighbors showcased the need for a central response center, which brought about the 9-1-1 emergency call system we know today.
When I heard Kitty’s story my heart was filled with conviction. I found myself recalling moments when I had acted like her New York City neighbors: hearing cries for help, either through a friend’s Facebook post or a barista’s sad disposition, but ignoring the cries because I didn’t have time to get involved, or I was counting on the fact that someone else would step in. Thinking thoughts like, “Well someday I can respond, but right now I don’t have the programs or infrastructure in place, so it’s just not the right time.”
I repented and asked the Lord to help me change my casual bystander mindset, and He led me to a very familiar passage of scripture and helped me read it with a fresh pair of eyes. Aren’t you thankful for a gracious God who sent the Holy Spirit to guide us and for the Word that is always transforming us into a more accurate image of Christ?
In Luke 10, a religious scholar asks Jesus what to do to receive eternal life. He wasn’t asking how to become immortal. Everyone is born an eternal being; after leaving the earth we either live forever in heaven or forever in hell. What this man is asking is how to receive life that comes from God, an above-and-beyond kind of life that you can live in right now!
Jesus answers the scholar with a question, “How do you interpret the law?” His response became one of the most well-known scriptures in the entire Bible.
Luke 10:27 “That you love the Lord your God with all your passion and prayer and muscle and intelligence—and that you love your neighbor as well as you do yourself.”
What did Jesus think of this answer? Let’s keep reading.
“Good answer!” said Jesus. “Do it and you’ll live.” Looking for a loophole, he [the scholar] asked, “And just how would you define ‘neighbor’?”
Jesus then shared the story of the good Samaritan.
A man was traveling from Jerusalem to Jericho. He was attacked by robbers and left for dead. Luckily, witnesses would roll up on the scene: a priest and a Levite. These men would surely help, right? Nope.
It’s so strikingly similar to the story of Kitty Genovese. Only this story has a happy ending.
Luke 10:33 A Samaritan traveling the road came on him. When he saw the man’s condition, his heart went out to him. He gave him first aid, disinfecting and bandaging his wounds. Then he lifted him onto his donkey, led him to an inn, and made him comfortable. In the morning he took out two silver coins and gave them to the innkeeper, saying, “Take good care of him. If it costs any more, put it on my bill—I’ll pay you on my way back.”
The Samaritan felt compassion for the bloody and beaten man. The scripture says his heart went out to him. How many times do we encounter people on our paths and send our hearts out to them, but stop there? We feel compassion, empathy, sadness, anger, disgust, pity, “all the feels,” if you will, while forgetting that all the feels in the world, without a sacrificial response, don’t amount to anything.
We have to take care of the people God places in our lives in the same way we take care of ourselves. We sacrifice to make sure dinner is on the table for our families. We sacrifice to make sure our kids have incredible birthday parties. We sacrifice to make sure we have a roof over our heads and clothes on our back. But what are we sacrificing for our neighbor?
I know sometimes the world seems hopeless, and it’s easier to keep your head down and just make sure that you and yours are happy and healthy, but Jesus says if we want to step into eternal living right now, we have to move from bystanders to first responders.
Let’s not wait for someone else to make the call. Let’s not roll over and hope someone else steps in. Ask the Holy Spirit to open your eyes and ears. Ask Him for a genuine concern for the ones in plain sight—a concern for both their social and spiritual needs—and then be ready to respond. It could be a phone call, providing a warm coat to someone who is cold, an offer to babysit for a friend, bringing flowers to the gal who does your nails, a home-cooked meal for someone going through a hard time, asking someone if you can pray for them, a hand-written note, spending time at a nursing home or a homeless shelter, or buying lunch for the man carrying the card-board sign on the corner. God’s not asking you to start a global ministry; He’s simply asking you to love Him and love people. Don’t overcomplicate it; see a need and fill the need.
Love wins, but only when we respond.
You Are a Visionary
A visionary is someone with a strong vision of the future. It seems like a title reserved for a select few: people like Walt Disney, George Lucas, Brian Houston, Steve Jobs, or Nelson Mandela. But I believe every born again believer can live in such a way that “visionary” will come up at some point during their eulogy.
God was a visionary. He envisioned the sky with its clouds, moon, stars, and sun. He envisioned the sea with its white waves, jellyfish, and coral. He envisioned the giraffe with its giant spots, extra-long eyelashes and black tongue. And He envisioned you.
Psalm 139:15-16
Like an open book, you watched me grow from conception to birth; all the stages of my life were spread out before you, the days of my life all prepared before I’d even lived one day.Before you took your first breath, God had a strong vision for your future. He is a visionary, and because His very Spirit lives in you, you are a visionary.
Don’t scoff. Quit inwardly rolling your eyes. I know you may not feel like a visionary, but if that’s the case, it’s only because you’ve never identified with that part of your spiritual DNA. You were created to have a strong vision of your future, the good hope-filled future that God has prepared for you.
Last October Josh and I were headed to Birmingham, Alabama for a very anticipated ministry conference and three days with no kids (Hallelujah! Can I get an amen?). When we arrived at the airport we found that our flight had been cancelled. Insert devastated emoji face here. We couldn’t get a flight out until the next day, which just wouldn’t have worked. It was drive 10 hours, or don’t go at all. We decided to drive it. We rented the cheapest car we could find and took off. A few minutes into the trip Josh discovered the car did not have a cruise control feature. He was a good sport about it, but I know driving 10 hours without being able to set the cruise control and just…you know…cruise, made the trip more work for him.
Cruise control on a 10-hour road trip is a good, good thing. It’s so easy to pick a speed, pick a lane, get comfortable, and set off to your destination, but visionaries understand that if you want the future to look different, you have to do something different.
If you want 2017 to be more fulfilling than 2016, than you’ll have to turn cruise control off. You’ll have to be okay with uncomfortable. You’ll have to desire different. If you keep on keeping on like you kept on last year, you’ll repeat the same year.
What would 2017 look like if you spent time seeking God and asking Him to reveal His vision for you to you? Remember, He said every stage of our lives was laid out in front of Him before our “birth” days!
He has envisioned what your relationship with Him looks like this year. He has envisioned your marriage. He has envisioned your career, your savings account, your friendships, your family life, your influence, your health, your mornings, your lunch breaks, your world. He’s envisioned it all, now it’s your turn. It’s your turn to kick into visionary mode. It’s your turn to dream about what God has planned for you this year.
Habakkuk 2:2 says, “Write the vision; make it plain on tablets, so he may run who reads it.”
I believe God is calling you to “run with it,” but before you can run with it, you must take time to understand what “it” is. Sit down with a pencil and a piece of paper and let God start to reveal His vision for you to you. Make it plain, easy to understand, create a timeline, think through practical steps that will make the vision become a reality. Write those steps down, and then read what you wrote and read it often. Keep it in front of your eyes, and then you can run with it and live out the life God has envisioned for you.
You are a visionary.
Auto Correct
I’ll just come right out and say it. I’m not a fan of talking on the phone. I used to like it. I liked it so much that when I lived at my parent’s house they got me my own phone line so I wasn’t always tying up theirs or making it impossible for the dial-up modem to connect to the Internet. But that was before I owned a cell phone. More importantly that was before I owned an iPhone.
My dislike for talking on the phone came when I got one of those bad boys. It was just so much simpler to text than it was to talk; especially with a 2-year-old running around. Now, I have three children at home and I rarely answer my phone. I’ll answer a text pretty quickly, but if you call me, you’ll have to wait until the baby goes down for a nap and the big kids are being entertained by a monkey and the man with the yellow hat before I call you back.
Since I communicate so much via text messaging I’ve come to appreciate Auto Correct. This is a handy software feature that automatically replaces a word or suggests an alternate word, if the word you type does not appear in the built-in dictionary on your phone.
For instance, if I had too much soy sauce with my sushi, and my extra-puffy fingers accidentally text, “I kovr sushi,” Auto Correct knows that kovr is not a word and what I meant was, “I Iove sushi,” and automatically changes kovr to love—so smart!
Your phone will also train itself to recognize certain words that are not in its dictionary, if you text them often enough. When I first had my daughter, Beau, her name was not in my dictionary, and Auto Correct was always trying to change it to something else. But after I declined the word replacement suggestion enough times it learned that Beau was what I was actually wanting to text. It even learned to automatically capitalize it.
I was texting my husband the other day and watching all the words I mistyped transform into the words I meant to type and I thought to myself, we need Auto Correct on more than just our phones, we need it in our minds.
Wouldn’t it be nice if every time you started to have a wrong thought, your mind would auto correct and replace that thought with a right one? Imagine what kind of effect that could have on your life. If you are thinking right, you are talking right, making right decisions, producing the right kind of fruit, attracting the right kind of relationships. All would be right in your world if you could only program your mind with an Auto Correct feature.
I’ve got good news. You can. You don’t have to hire a computer programmer or a brain surgeon. You don’t have to pay a fortune. You don’t have to take special vitamins or eat a certain diet or be a part of Mensa. All you need is a Bible.
II Timothy 3:16-17 (ESV) All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work.
The Word of God, when mediated upon, has the power to auto correct your thoughts. When you study and memorize scripture you are downloading information into your mind and spirit that will override and correct any wrong information you’ve been programmed with, so you can be equipped to do all that God put you on this planet to do.
You may have programmed yourself to think that stress is a normal part of life and something that you just have to deal with. You may even start certain days proclaiming, “This is going to be a stressful day!” But if you study the Word you’ll see that that way of thinking is wrong. The Bible says not to worry about anything. The Bible says Jesus came to make our burdens light. The Bible says Jesus is the Prince Of Peace. If you make those truths a part of your life, they will auto correct your thoughts when you begin to feel stressed or overwhelmed. They will change your proclamation from, “This is going to be a stressful day,” into “This is the day the Lord has made. He’s going to carry my burdens! He’s going to command peace over my day. He’s going to lead me beside still waters. He’s going to calm my storms.”
You may have programmed yourself to think that your dream is too big. You find yourself doubting the call God has placed on your life or trying to figure out how you can make it happen in your own strength. But if you study God’s Word, and the lives of men like Noah and David, you’ll reprogram yourself to correct those thoughts with things like, “My God is faithful! He who started a good work will finish it. He makes all things work together for my good. His ways are better than my ways!”
We all live in the same fallen world and we have all been programmed with thoughts that do not line up with the Word of God, but we can train our minds to replace those thoughts—to correct those thoughts—by filling our inner dictionary with promises and principles from God’s Word.
It may not happen overnight. Just like it took several times of me declining whatever word my phone suggested, when I typed Beau’s name. It may take you several times of declining whatever wrong thoughts pop into your mind first, but eventually if you keep putting the Word of God in your spirit, it will stick. God’s Word will be the first suggestion that pops up in every area of your life. Truth will override everything else and all will be right with you.
Through the Word we are put together and shaped up for the tasks God has for us. (II Tim 3:17, MSG)
Shooting Your Arrow By Faith
Christian Kids In Public Schools
I love this time of year. Giant pencils hanging from the ceiling at Target, directing me toward the school supplies. Tax-free shopping for new shoes and skinny jeans, for my pride and joys. The anticipation of getting back into a routine.
On Thursday, my firstborn will have his first day of first grade. This time last year I was gearing up to send my little guy to kindergarten at—dun, dun dun—public school! I was kind of a wreck.
I grew up in public school. A big, 6-A public school. I was a Union Redskin from kindergarten until graduation day. I loved it and I turned out okay, right? So why was the thought of sending my son to public school so hard to wrap my mind around.
Maybe it’s because in 1990, when I started kindergarten, things were different. There were no 5-year-olds with their own iPads. Christmas break was called Christmas break instead of “winter” break. I could walk to school with my older brother and play in the front yard when I got home, even though my mom wasn’t home from work yet. School shootings were unheard of. No one knew what the Internet was and my teachers just stuck to the basics: reading, writing and arithmetic. There was no need to discuss same-sex marriage and gender-identity curriculum didn’t exist yet.
Don’t get me wrong, I was exposed to all kinds of things in public school, but times have really changed over the last 25 years and there’s no denying that Jesus isn’t welcome at public schools anymore. So how could I send my little boy into a place where Jesus wasn’t welcome? Well, I had no choice. Christian school, where we lived, was too expensive, and I didn’t feel like I was called to home school.
I really needed peace about this, so I brought it to the Lord, and He delivered.
In the second chapter of Exodus you can read about the birth of one of the greatest heroes in the Bible, Moses—and his amazing momma, Jochebed.
A few verses before we read about Moses being born, we read about Pharaoh ordering every newborn boy be thrown into the Nile River. Pharaoh was inexplicably evil, willing to murder precious baby boys so that the Israelites would not grow to outnumber his people.
Can you imagine the horror Jochebed felt when she delivered Moses and her midwife whispered in her ear, “It’s a boy.” You know for nine months as she carried him she hoped and prayed that she would have a girl, for a girl she could keep. But God gave her a son, now what was she going to do with him?
The Bible said she saw Moses was special. She could see God’s hand on this baby boy’s life, so she kept him hidden for three months. I have three children and let me tell you it would be very, very difficult to keep an infant hidden for three months. I’m guessing she never let him “cry it out” to get him sleep-trained. She probably couldn’t let him cry at all. She was probably with him every waking minute, and I’m sure her bond with him grew stronger each passing day, but the time had come when she realized she couldn’t hide him any longer. She made a basket for him, lined it with his favorite blankie, put him in it, and left the basket near the river in some tall grass. She had to be terrified, right? Wrong!
Hebrews 11:23 (NKJV) By faith Moses, when he was born, was hidden three months by his parents, because they saw he was a beautiful child; and they were not afraid of the king’s command.
This verse tells us she was not afraid. Moses’ parents hid him not out of fear but out of faith! When Jochebed left her baby in the basket that day, she was showing God she trusted Him to take care of her son. She stepped out in faith and God followed with favor. God not only took care of her son, but He made a way for Jochebed to continue to mother her beautiful baby boy.
As a Christian mom sending my child to public school, I felt a little like I was putting him in a basket in the Nile River. I had to choose: fear or faith?
After reading about Jochebed, it was easy to choose faith.
Jochebed sent Moses into a land where God was not welcome and just think about how mightily the Lord used him! God had a plan for Moses; He has one for my kids, and your kids, too!
When I dropped my son off last year, I didn’t shed a tear. I wasn’t sad or fearful, but full of faith. I believed that like Psalm 127 says, he is an arrow, an arrow we had spent the last five years sharpening, an arrow that would go out and fulfill His purpose. I believed that the Holy Spirit would guide him and lead him when choosing friends. I believed that he would be a light and a leader. I believed he would have favor with his teachers. I believed God would protect him physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually and that no evil could befall him or come near him. I believed that God would use him mightily! Glory to God, he had a great school year! As we gear up for first grade, I am believing the same things.
Jochebed, a wife and a mother to three children, made a decision to have faith instead of fear, and her faith changed the course of history. Whatever your plan is for school this year—home school, Christian, private, or public—don’t be afraid. Launch your kids into their best year yet, full of faith in our great God!
I Have A Confession
In 1989, five boys, ages 14 to 16, were arrested for causing trouble in New York’s Central Park. While they were being held for questioning, a 28-year-old woman was found in the same park, critically beaten and sexually assaulted. The detectives asked the young boys if they had anything to do with it, they all said no. After hours of interrogation, the boys were professionally coerced into admitting they were the ones responsible for the awful crime against the innocent jogger, even though they were not. The detectives had them convinced that if they would just make up a statement, they could go home. And they wanted to go home, so they confessed.
When the cases of the five boys went to trial, there was no incriminating evidence against any of them. In fact, all the evidence pointed to the fact that they did not commit this crime. No DNA from any of the boys was found on the victim and they were in another part of the park, causing trouble with a bunch of other kids, when the crime would have happened. But a district attorney had their confessions on tape and because of those confessions (which did not agree with one another) they would each spend the next seven to ten years in prison!
What can we learn from this crazy but true story? Do not confess things that are not true!
We make confessions every day. We confess we are tired. We confess we are stressed. We confess we don’t feel good. We confess we are overweight. We confess we don’t like our jobs. We confess we aren’t good enough. We confess the wrong kind of confessions all of the time, and most of the time, we do it without even realizing it.
Hebrews 10:23 Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful.
The word confession in this verse is from the Greek word homologia and it’s not referring to someone who just reads confessions or makes mindless parrot-like confessions, it’s referring to someone who has meditated on God’s Word and has it so down in their heart that it fills them with hope and when they open their mouth they can’t help but confess what God says about them. They can’t help it, because they believe it.
When you hear people talk, or see their Facebook posts, about how they are dreading Monday or about how it’s going to be a realllly long week, you can be sure they haven’t taken the time to get in sync with God concerning those things. We know this because we know He isn’t dreading Monday and we know He’s not complaining about the long week. He says, “This is the day I have made, rejoice and be glad in it.” (Psalm 118:24)
We have to pay attention to our confessions, because they matter. Life and death are in the power of the tongue. When you say things about yourself, your husband, your children, your day, your week or your year, that don’t agree with what God says about them, you are confessing things that are not true! When those boys opened their mouths and confessed to a crime they did not commit, they changed the path of their lives forever.
Don’t let your circumstances coerce you into confessing a lie! Get in the Word and let it sink down into your spirit, so when you open your mouth or update your status, you confess truth, hope, and faith in a faithful God!
Who Is Your Interpreter?
When I was in seventh grade, I went on a mission trip to Peru with a group of teenagers from my church. The native language in Peru is Spanish and, “Me no hablo espanol,” so if I wanted to communicate with anyone there who, “No hablan ingles,” I had to have an interpreter.
Interpreter: a person who translates the words that someone is speaking into a different language.
I can still remember our group’s interpreter, Liz. She had wavy, dark hair and wore red lipstick. She not only translated what we were saying to the Peruvians, but she translated what they were saying to us.
If she were ornery she could have really messed with me by misinterpreting some of the things I needed her to translate. I could have asked her to order me a hamburger and French fries and since I don’t recognize very many Spanish words she could have ordered me a plate of fried guinea pig and I wouldn’t have known it until the “delicacy” arrived at the table.
A few weekends ago I was at a women’s conference listening to one of my favorites, Pastor Jimmy Evans, when he said something that hit me like a ton of bricks. I pray as you read this it has that same type of impact on your life.
“Stop letting the devil interpret the people in your life to you.”
Satan is an interpreter. He will take words, thoughts, and actions, and translate them into a different language, his native language.
John 8:44 (NIV) When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies.
I’ve heard many teachings on how the devil will lie to you about yourself. He’s great at making you think you aren’t good enough, smart enough, or spiritual enough. He knows just what thoughts to plant in your head to make you feel inadequate. I’ve learned through the years how to recognize his voice and take those thoughts captive by meditating and declaring what God’s Word says about me.
I don’t let the devil interpret me to me, I am all God says I am, but what about other people in my life: my husband, my kids, my friends, my leaders, my God? When the enemy plants a thought about one of them in my mind, am I as quick to recognize that it’s a lie? Am I as quick to run that thought off by speaking God’s Word and declaring that the person Satan is interpreting to me is all God says THEY are?
Satan cannot be trusted as an interpreter. Eve learned this the hard way. In the third chapter of Genesis she has one conversation with Satan where she allowed him to interpret God to her. She doubted God’s goodness and His motives, all based on lies and misinterpretations from a conniving snake.
Satan loves to tear relationships apart, especially marriages. He is an expert at taking one thing your spouse said or did, or didn’t do, and translating it to you in a way that causes you to take up a great offense with them. Maybe it’s something as small as your husband not taking out the trash when you asked him to. It wasn’t a shot at you or a picture of his lack of love for you, but if given the chance, Satan will interpret that one action into a lie that causes you to resent your husband and then he will continue to build on that.
When you find yourself frustrated with the people in your life, ask yourself why. Is it, perhaps, because you have been letting a liar interpret them to you? Don’t stand for that! Defend your loved ones with the Word of God like you would defend yourself.
I Corinthians 13:6-7 (NIV) Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
Let's Take This Relationship Up A Notch
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