“It is only through labor and painful effort, by grim energy and resolute courage, that we move on to better things” ~ Theodore Roosevelt
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Month: June 2011
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In the Ditch – Day 151
It is a common refrain to hear, “the church is hypocritical”. Indeed, there are organizations in Christianity that are built around a long long list of rules; “your dress hem should be this high”, “Don’t wear high heels”, “Your dress has to be two-ply”, etc. (This is for the guys. ;-P o.0). They have reduced Christianity to a bunch of Pharisaical rules. You look at their rule book, and then you look at the Bible and go O.o.
On the other hand you have the “grace” people. Christianity is not really anything but an encouragement workshop that preaches some sort of thing that is really nothing; you come to get hugged by a big teddy bear; it makes you feel warm and fuzzy inside. But eventually you stop going to church. Why bother? You can just as easily listen to a positive thinking speaker on the radio. There is no commitment because there is nothing to commit to.
I think these issues often boil down to having the right balance. It is easy to sit in the ditch of imbalance; staying on the middle of the road is hard. It is easy to go one way or another, and interestingly enough, I have seen a number of people go into both ditches. I have seen them jump from one ditch to the other. In reacting against one imbalance they rush into another imbalance; and then eventually they just quit. It is difficult to be balanced because we are sinners and it is something that we will struggle for the entirety of our lives.
“You shall not add to the word that I command you, nor take from it, that you may keep the commandments of the LORD your God that I command you.” – Deuteronomy 4:2
Hope you have a wonderful Sunday! ^_^
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Lasting a Lifetime – Day 150
Many young adults no longer attend church once they leave home. They head off to college, and since they saw the church as something that was never really anything more than Bible stories in Sunday school and a dull pastor who did not live as he preached, naturally, they stopped attending.
I recently glanced through Ken Ham’s book “Already Gone”, and I perused several of the statistics. To be perfectly honest, I was not surprised by most of the statistics. There is a multitude of different reasons why people leave the church; hypocrisy, boredom, legalism, politics, and so on. They were tired of going to church and were far more concerned with success in college.
In the end, we know that most of these people had already began to withdraw from the life of the church. They had “checked out” long before they actually left the church. I see this phenomenon often today. In the past, social pressures influenced one to be part of the church. One had to be a part of the church to be culturally normative. But in today’s culture, one is encouraged to leave the church and “get on with life”. One no longer has to hide the hypocrisy. Perhaps this is good…
One of the problems that I have seen is that parents pay little attention to teaching their children God’s Word. They send their kids off to school so that they can play their golf game and take time for themselves. These people have little passion for the church of God. For many of these people, church has become a burden and a responsibility rather than a joy. These people send their kids to Sunday School in order to alleviate their own responsibility to teach their children the Bible. Ironically, those children that did spend time in Sunday School were often more likely to doubt the Bible than those children which did not participate. This is ironic, but it makes sense since these parents have abdicated their responsibility to teach their children God’s Word. (Not necessarily true of all parents by any means, but you understand where this attitude of lax behavior can quickly come about if the parents perceive this instruction of children to be done primarily by the church on a Sunday morning for half an hour.)
At the end of the day, people are responsible for their own sins. But it is the parent’s God-given duty to train their children in the Word of God (Deut. 6:7).
As a young Christian, you must make the faith your own. If you simply affirm your parent’s faith but do not have faith yourself, it is worthless to your salvation and sanctification.
Be devoted to the Word of God and prayer. It is imperative that one spend time rooted in the wisdom of the Scriptures and that one apply these sacred truths to the sins that confront us each day.
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Thankful Thursday – Day 149
I’m thankful today for friends. Friends who are willing to be with me when times are hard. Friends who I can have a good time with. Friends who I can challenge. Friends who will challenge me. Friends who when I am weak put out a shoulder for me to lean on. Friends who I can put a shoulder out there for them. Friends who I can laugh with and cry with. Friends who pray for one another.
Thank you those of you who are my friends. I’m very grateful for your friendship.
P.S. One thing that I’ve been learning about friendship is that it needs to go both ways. If you come into a friendship looking for handouts or constant encouragement you’re going to be sadly disappointed. A relationship needs to have both people wanting to love each other in Christ and to honor God in order to have a real lasting friendship.
If not to honor God why would we try to put others before ourselves? We may do it in the short term to make ourselves feel good or maybe to benefit from their friendship. But in the end it’s going to either be all about us or it’s going to be all about God.
P.S.S. Random note, don’t forget to take what I say, from day to day, with a healthy grain of salt. About 8% of what I say is worth listening to. If that..
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Overflowing – Day 148
Why do we only see the cup as half full when it’s really overflowing?
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Sun – Day 147
Life is fun when you’re in the sun. Up to the point you turn into a lobster… ;-P
There are many different groups within Christianity. I’m specifically talking about the ones that are separated by major points of doctrine. And you’ll debate all day long with these people. But there’s a point where you say you go your way and I’ll go mine. And in 15-20 years we’ll meet again and see where the fruit is. Doctrine is important and it’ll be worked out in your life over time. What you believe has consequences. And the question is, what will those consequences be?
What would happen if you were wrong? An interesting question for sure.
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Friendship Quote – Day 145
Be courteous to all, but intimate with few, and let those few be well tried before you give them your confidence. – George Washington
True friends stab you in the front. – Oscar Wilde
Pictures of the Day #145:
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Patience – Day 144
Learning patience isn’t the most fun thing in the world. It typically involves testing your patience… Why?!
😉
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Give Up?! – Day 143
It’s easy to start something. But it’s much harder to finish it. It’s easy to take the first step of a marathon. The 50,000th step at the end is also fairly easy. But those other steps 2-49,999. Oh so much harder. It’s easy to give up for a multitude of reasons.
Number one, it may just be farther than you imagined it was when you started. Instead of being merely a pleasant walk in the woods, you got lost 3 times. You ran into a bear. You ran out of water. And yet you still can’t see the end.
Or, maybe it’s just boring. You’ve already taken 10,000 steps. Why take another 40,000? The bathroom has been cleaned hundreds of times. Does it really need to be cleaned again?!
Maybe you just forgot how much you’ve accomplished. I have 30,000 more steps to go. But I forgot that I already accomplished 20,000..
Our minds will tempt us to give up. And sometimes it’s true. We should give up. It would be the wise thing to do to give up. But most of the time, we should strive to make things work.
If you’re always giving up on your businesses, your relationships, and life in general then you just aren’t going to make it anywhere.
Life is difficult. The question is will you conquer it or will it conquer you?
Picture of the Day #143:
