Entries Tagged 'Spiritual Reflection' ↓

At the beginning of my sermon this past Sunday, I said that we limit God (that is, we, the hands and feet of Jesus, limit God’s work in the world).

That’s a sobering reality.

I’m sure there are many ways we limit God’s work in the world. I talked about four ways in my introduction on Sunday …

• Lack of surrender
• Lack of faith
• Lack of obedience
• Lack of growth

You can probably add other ways we limit God to the list.

When we’re not living fully surrendered to God or exercising our faith, when we’re not doing what we know to do or following the Spirit’s promptings, and when we’re not growing as disciples of Jesus Christ, we are limiting God’s work in us and the people and world around us.

What would it look like if we fully surrendered our lives to God, became full of faith, obeyed God’s Word and Spirit, and continually grew deeper in Christ?

Three months ago, I wrote that I started using Twitter (click here for my Twitter stream). I also wrote about Twitter Web Apps shortly after that (which probably needs updating).

Over the last few months, I’ve marked a number of tweets as “favorites.” Periodically, I’ll blog some of my favorite favorites—statements that inspire and challenge me—starting with these (copied-and-pasted here in their original format) …

A Twitter stream featuring quotes from my favorite devotional writer, Oswald Chambers …

Living a life of faith means never knowing where you are being led.

Never allow a feeling that was awakened in you on the mountaintop to evaporate.

I tend to favorite a lot of Mike Slaughter’s tweets …

1st key 2 revitalize dying church: Preach evry Sun. abt how a church looks that takes biblical model of the church seriously.

2nd key 2 revitalize a church: Ask in ech mtg, “How is what we r doing not only getting people 2 know the word, but to do it?”

3rd key 2 revitalize a church: ask self-if neighborhood person walked n2 back of church on Sun, would this attract him/her 2 Jesus?

4th key way 2 revitalize a church: Teach people not only 2 invite others 2 worship, but also 2 invite them 2 participate in ministry

If someone unfamiliar w/ ur church examined ur budget, what would he/she conclude about ur church’s priorities?

Leaders, at heart of every decision u make 4 ur church is a choice between courage and compliance. How r u doing?

Renewals and reformation are never born out of timidity.

Some favorites from Rick Warren …

Never fear criticism.Fear conformity,which stunts the soul. U cant have everyone’s approval &God’s anointing at same time.

God sometimes removes a person from your life for your protection. Don’t run after them.

And Rick Warren’s RWToolbox …

“You pay God a great compliment by asking great things of Him.” Teresa of Avila

ATSAlumni posts a lot of inspirational/challenging quotes. Some of my favorites include …

Jesus does not want us to work for Him. He wants us to let Him do His work through us.-C.G. Trumbull

The Church that does not evangelize will fossilize.-Oswald J. Smith

Preachers with cold hearts will never warm and awaken the consciences of their hearers.-Bruce Milne

The greatness of man’s power is his surrender. It is not who you are, or what you are, but whether God controls you.-Henrietta C Mear

UNTAMEDbook is a book by Alan Hirsch. Here are a couple quotes from the book …

“You simply cannot be a disciple without being a missionary – a sent one.”

Prayer is rebellion against the status quo. “Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven”

One from Stephen Covey …

So many competing priorities. Learn to say “no” or you will burn out. Having a burning “yes” will allow you to say NO to the unimportant.

One of my favorite leadership writers is John Maxwell. Here are a couple of his tweets …

The greatest gap in life is the one between knowing & doing. -Dick Biggs

Effective communication is 20% what you know & 80% how you feel about what you know. -Jim Rohn

One Twitter stream posts unpublished quotes from A. W. Tozer …

It will cost you everything to follow the Lord. And it will cost you even more to be His man [or woman] for this hour.

Many Christians are satisfied with their destination but they neglect the journey.

Any sermon that is not birthed in prayer is not a message from God no matter how learned the preacher.

Silence is often the most eloquent answer to our critics.

In an effort to get the work of the Lord done we often lose contact with the Lord of work.

God is never satisfied with anything less than all.

From Ed Stetzer …

“Every Christian is either a missionary or an imposter.” ~Spurgeon.

Leonard Sweet …

For Wesley, internal combustion (“heart strangely warmed”) led to external combustion (“world is my parish”)

Life is not a do-it-yourself project.

Max Lucado …

Blessed are those who acknowledge that there is only one God and have quit applying for his position.

Tom Tumblin from Asbury Theological Seminary …

Which shall we be: leaders who evoke (draw out) or provoke (stir up)? Jesus was both invitational and confrontational. Lord, teach me both.

Tim Sanders …

The only reason to give a speech is to change the world – Nick Morgan

Janice Neely …

I am a little pencil in the hand of a writing God who is sending a love letter to the world. Mother Teresa

These are a lot of my favorites. You can read the full list of my favorites here.

One of the main reasons I went all out in the Health Flex HealthMiles Challenge was simply to see what I could do and to put myself to the (physical and mental) test. Going all out every day required me to push through some challenges along the way, including …

• Getting up 29 mornings between 5:00 and 6:00 and walking 10,000 in about 75 minutes (more or less).
• Staying on track every day by constantly monitoring my progress and making sure I was on target. It was at least as much of a mental test as a physical one.
• Working through occasional pain.
• Four days devoted to the trip to Washington D.C, including at least 6 hours total travel time on Sunday and Wednesday as well as several hours of sitting Monday through Wednesday morning.

Life is like that. There will always be obstacles and challenges. We need determination to stick it out. It’s a discipline. We need to develop the discipline of determination, the ability to stick to it.

It’s wise to practice determination in the smaller things so that when we encounter the bigger things, we’ll have the determination to stick it out and to keep moving forward!

Question: Where do you need to develop the discipline of determination?

As any parent knows, learning to share is a challenging process. We’ve been pretty laid-back about it because it’s something that will develop over time. However, bringing Sarah into our family has brought it to the forefront a bit more!

Sharing is one of those things that’s difficult for all children to learn. In fact, it’s even difficult for adults to practice! It’s just that it’s more obvious with children and adults are better at hiding it!

The earliest Christ-followers, after the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost, set the sharing bar really high …

They sold their property and possessions and shared the money with those in need. (Acts 2.45)

We all have room to grow!

Well, I posted some of Ethan’s phrases recently (Ethanisms 1.0 and 2.0). A phrase that’s stood out this week has been a sharing-related one.

Last Monday evening, at a gathering of area United Methodist pastors, Ethan reached over and grabbed some food from my plate (nothing new there!), and said, “I’m sharing with you!” The next day, took a toy from Sarah (nothing new there, either!), and after walking away from Sarah with the toy, he said again, “I’m sharing with you!”

Well, he doesn’t quite have the concept just yet, but at least it’s on the radar!

I am currently doing a sermon series on “Life in the Wilderness.” The wilderness represents those times when life doesn’t go according to plan, when something happens that we aren’t expecting.

Everyone goes through the wilderness; no one is exempt. And the wilderness changes us — no one comes out on the other side unchanged by what we’ve experienced. Either we are closer to God or we have moved away from God.

Last Sunday, I talked about trusting God in the wilderness. I think trust is connected to surrender. Sometimes we even use the language of “trusting Christ as Savior,” which essentially means we’ve surrendered our lives to Christ. When we trust God, we surrender our lives to God. If we don’t trust God with our lives, we won’t surrender.

I’ve been reading Secrets from the Treadmill by Pete Briscoe and Patricia Hickman, a book about finding God’s rest in the midst of a busy life. The book mentions a sign seen behind the counter at a restaurant which reads …

The answer is “Yes.” Now, what’s the question!

I believe that’s the motto of a surrendered follower of Jesus.

It’s also a statement of faith that is a little scary to say. But what’s the alternative? Perhaps, “The answer is, well, I’ll wait till I hear God’s question, then decide if the answer is yes or no.” If we’re going to be fully-devoted and surrendered followers of Jesus, we must say yes. And if that’s true, then why not say yes from the beginning?

Surrendering to God is usually a process. But the process goes much better when we’re committed to a life of surrender from the beginning!

Not saying it’s easy. Just saying it’s what surrendered Christ-followers aim for!

One of the books I finished up during Lent, as part of my Lenten Growth Plan, was Eugene Peterson’s Eat This Book (which I wrote about a couple times after I started reading it last year: Eat This Book 1.0 and Eat This Book 2.0).

Peterson also wrote The Message, a paraphrase/translation of the Scriptures, but I first discovered Peterson while I was in seminary in the early 1990s when I read The Contemplative Pastor, which had a huge impact on me, at the time.

In part two of Eat This Book, Peterson discusses the importance of right reading.

Reading the Bible, if we do not do it rightly can get us into a lot of trouble (81). … An enormous about of damage is done in the name of Christian living by bad Bible reading (82).

Specifically, Peterson writes about the ancient practice, lectio divina.

Lectio divina cultivates this personal, participatory attentiveness and thus trains us in the discipline of reading Scripture rightly (84). … Lectio divina is a way of life that develops ‘according to the Scriptures’ (89). … Lectio divina comprises four elements: lectio (we read the text), meditatio (we meditate the text), oratio (we pray the text), and contemplatio (we live the text) (91).

And I love this statement …

[I]t is not enough to understand the Bible, or admire it. God has spoken; now it’s our move (109).

In other words, God’s Word is transformational, not just informational.

Part three, “The Company of Translators,” deals with translations leading up to Peterson’s own translation, The Message.

It seemed that in the earliest years of my walk with God (mostly in the 1990s), there were a number of modern translations being published in this days. I think I must have bought a copy of each. My favorites are the New Living Translation (NLT) and the Contemporary English Version (CEV). I also have a copy of the God’s Word translation and I have more recently started referring to the New Century Version (NCV) online. I also like the online translation, the NET Bible, especially for study. And recently, I learned that there’s a new translation in the works, the Common English Bible.

I already liked Peterson’s translation, The Message, but after reading these last to chapters, my admiration/respect for this translation has gone up.

Stating that the “Bible is the most translated book in the world” (121), he discusses the challenge and the necessity of translation…

There is plenty of translation that takes place everyday in getting the American English I speak into the American English that you hear. … We all use words differently. And we misunderstand frequently. Language is ambiguous. We have to repeat often and explain patiently (168).

And finally …

Translation is interpretation. Always. It is interpretation because words always convey far more meaning than the dictionary assigns them. Words have histories, emotional associations, story-influenced connotations. And interpretation requires–to one degree or another–paraphrase (173).

Peterson is always challenging and inspiring, and this book has given me an even greater appreciation for God’s Word.

Acouple days ago, we gave Ethan a treat after lunch (a little bit of Easter candy). Ethan doesn’t eat much junk food so he doesn’t get much sugar, normally.

But after his treat, he was too wound up to take his normal 2+ hour nap. He stayed in his room (mostly in his bed, although he ran around a bit, too) for about an hour-and-a-half but never went to sleep. Fortunately, Sarah was able to get her hour-long nap in during this time.

Ethan came downstairs after Sarah woke up, and I said something like, “No more sugar for Ethan,” to which he replied, “Sugar makes me happy!”

I’ve thought about that statement from a discipleship perspective. How easy it is for us to prefer “sugar” over the “food” that helps us get/stay healthy.

Think about your favorite stories and verses in the Bible. Most likely, they’re the more encouraging statements. We certainly need those parts of the story, but what about what those parts that correct and challenge us? We need to hear those words, too.

This has implications for preaching. People need the whole Word of God — the parts that encourage and uplift as well as the parts that cut to the heart, parts that are hard to swallow. A preacher’s (or a parent’s) primary goal is not to make people “happy,” but to help them encounter God in a way that leads to real life change. That happens by speaking the truth in love!

To grow in our walk with God, we need a healthy, balanced diet (not with too much sugar, though, especially for little kids).

You know the drill, one of your many rechargeable battery-powered gadgets needs recharging, so you plug it into its specific rechargeable device (after you find it!).

A couple weeks ago, I plugged in my cell phone, and Ethan asked if my phone was dead. It wasn’t, so I said, “No, it just needs to be recharged.” So he replied, “Is it a little bit dead?”

Well, last week, I plugged a couple other rechargeable gadgets into an outlet. And this morning, when I tried to use one of them, battery power lasted only a few seconds. That didn’t make sense.

Seconds later, though, I thought to check the electrical outlet to see if the “Reset” button needed pressed. It did. So what I thought was recharging really wasn’t accomplishing anything!

I wondered if that happens to us physically, emotionally, and spiritually as well.

“Recharging batteries” is a good metaphor for personal/spiritual self-care. But we need to check, occasionally, to see if what we think is recharging our batteries is accomplishing anything or not. We may think we’re recharging our batteries, but if we’re connected to the power source, nothing is happening!

So, when you recharge your batteries, make sure you are *really* connecting to the power source!

My sermon last Sunday focused on Jesus’ time in the Garden of Gethsemane (“olive press”) found in Mark 14.32-42.

In the midst of the agony Jesus was feeling, he was also greatly concerned for Peter, James, and John, who were supposed to “keep watch” with Jesus. I love the question Jesus asked his friends when he found them sleeping a short distance away …

Simon, are you asleep?

Their sleepiness was understandable. It was late (probably after midnight) and they had just completed an extra intense Passover Seder. Jesus had warned them throughout the night his suffering was about to begin, and that in the process, one of them would betray him, one would deny him, and they all would desert him!

That would have been a good time to stay alert!

Jesus said …

Stay awake and pray that you won’t give into temptation!

Jesus asked his friends to keep watch, to stay alert, to stay awake … to live ready.

I’ve always remembered a quote I read a long time ago by Smith Wigglesworth …

Live ready. If you have to get ready when the opportunity comes your way, it will be too late. Opportunity does not wait, not even while you pray. You must not have to get ready, you must live ready at all times.

I wonder how often God asks us if we’re asleep. Jesus, who wanted his friends to be alert that fateful night, also wants us to be on guard and to pray that we won’t give in when we are tested.

Peter learned that lesson the hard way. Years later, he challenged Christ-followers in a letter …

Be on your guard and stay awake. Your enemy, the devil, is like a roaring lion, sneaking around to find someone to attack. (1 Peter 5.8)

It’s an important lesson for us, too. We must stay awake, be alert, be on guard, and live ready!

Today is Ash Wednesday, the beginning of the Lenten season. This morning, I was finishing up reading through Ezra and his prayer toward the end of the book sounded like a good prayer for the beginning of Lent.

Ezra, who has returned to Jerusalem with a group of Israelites that were in captivity in Babylon, heard that the people had sinned. Ezra says, “This news made me so angry that I ripped my clothes and tore hair from my head and beard. Then I just sat in shock until time for the evening sacrifice.” (That’s a pretty intense response to sin!)

Then Ezra prayed …

I am much too ashamed to face you, LORD God. Our sins and our guilt have swept over us like a flood that reaches up to the heavens. Since the time of our ancestors, all of us have sinned. That’s why we, our kings, and our priests have often been defeated by other kings. They have killed some of us and made slaves of others; they have taken our possessions and made us ashamed, just as we are today.

But for now, LORD God, you have shown great kindness to us. You made us truly happy by letting some of us settle in this sacred place and by helping us in our time of slavery. We are slaves, but you have never turned your back on us. You love us, and because of you, the kings of Persia have helped us. It’s as though you have given us new life! (Ezra 9.6-9; read the whole prayer in Ezra 9.)

As we turn toward God, and away from sin, may this Lenten season be an especially transformational experience for all of us!