Give Anyway

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I once spoke with someone going through something very difficult. I asked him how he wanted to handle a certain change that challenging circumstances had dictated. “As painlessly as possible,” he said. “I’ve been through enough.”

This person has lived a life of giving to others, but in that comment he revealed the weakness we all have in the face of strong natural feelings. His pain was causing him to feel a bit like a victim—a victim who had suffered enough.

The Key to Overcoming

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Everything begins in the mind. “As a man thinks—so is he” is still true. Many have pointed out that in every situation there are two significant elements: (1) the circumstance itself and (2) the way you think about it. Of the two, however, the second is far more important than the first.

As I write this, I am reading a book by a man who was paralyzed in his youth by polio and has had only the use of some toes on one foot throughout most of his forty plus years, and yet he has earned and has become an author who types his own manuscripts. His circumstances seem overwhelming, but because of the way he came to think about them, he has been able to overcome.

Always a Choice

 Some people just have a naturally optimistic and cheery attitude toward life. They don’t seem to have to overcome much of anything to get there. It just seems to be in their DNA.

If you aren’t really acquainted with the Psalms, you might read some of the statements of David and assume that he was one of those sanguine happy souls.

You might hear him say this in Psalm 31: 

But I trust in you, O Lord;

I say, "You are my God."

My times are in your hands…

And you might think, I wish I could be like this. He makes it sound so easy. But this is one of those times when you need to look carefully at what led up to that statement.

The Kingdom -Vol. 2 -Another Excerpt

My friend Steve Brown and I are excited to see our second volume on the Kingdom of God now available. To give you just a taste of  what this book that is all about -- Jesus’ great sermon on the Kingdom life -- we will share this week another excerpt from the Introduction.

Realize there is no way to live this life on our own power. The more we read these teachings of Jesus, the more we may find ourselves saying, “God have mercy on us.” The Sermon starts with a beatitude (“blessed are the poor in spirit”) that is a confession that we are spiritual beggars…that we cannot do this without help. But each of the Beatitudes is a reminder of the grace that God intervenes to give his people. Of the “poor in spirit” Jesus says, “theirs is the Kingdom”! They taste the powers of the coming age (Hebrews 6:5). They receive strength to turn and live a new way.

The Kingdom, Volume Two

My friend Steve Brown and I are excited to see our second volume on the Kingdom of God now available. To give you just a taste of this book that is all about Jesus’ great sermon on the Kingdom life, we will share a few excerpts from the Introduction this week and next.

Can the most challenging words we have ever read also be the most encouraging? Can a serious call to live an impossible dream not depress us but transform us? The answer to both questions is “yes” if those words are the message of Jesus that we usually call tthe Sermon on the Mount found in Matthew 5–7.

In our first volume on the Kingdom of God we pointed out that the Kingdom of God was Jesus’ primary message. We described how Jesus announced the in-breaking of God’s future into our present age. We saw it was his plan for the people of God, empowered by the Holy Spirit, to start living “on earth as it is in heaven.” But what does this type of living look like?

Showing Kindness to God

One of the most frequent prayers found in the book of Psalms is some form of “Lord, have mercy on me.” The Hebrew word used here carries the idea of “Lord, show me your loving kindness and devotion.”

But in Jeremiah 2:2 we find the word used in a very different way. Through Jeremiah God says to the people, “I remember the kindness [devotion] of your youth, your love as a bride” (KJV).  By the time of this writing Israel was showing God little of this, but God could remember when Israel showed kindness to him and was devoted to him with the loving kindness of a bride.

We Need Other People!

Some years ago, as I struggled with my illness and battled with a tenacious depression, I had some very mature and wise people in my life who could not figure me out. They wanted to have the answers. They wanted to find out how to fix me, but they will tell you today that they were perplexed. But in spite of their frustration and limitations, they did the right thing: They kept loving me. And, fortunately, I did the right thing: I let them.