Living a God Honoring Life

We are created in God’s image.

The main point of that reality is that we are to be God’s representatives in the world. I like to say, “We are created to demonstrate God’s character.” 

Demonstrating God’s character means, like any good representative, that we bring honor to Him. Our lives should honor God.

This is how Jesus lived. 

On two occasions (his baptism and the transfiguration) God declared that He was pleased with Jesus (Matthew 3:17 and Matthew 17:6). Jesus lived the life that God desired him to live.

A question I need to ask myself is: Do I seek please God with my life? 

I confess the answer is scary. 

Honestly, I have a desire to honor God and to please Him with the way I live. If that wasn’t the case I wouldn’t be a pastor and I wouldn’t spend so much time thinking, writing, and talking about following Jesus.

There is no doubt that I want to live a life that honors God.

Yet, when I take an honest evaluation of my life, I get discouraged by the lack of intention that I put into actually living a life that follows Jesus and honors God.

I realize that part of this is human nature. It is hard to give up our agendas and pursue God. 

We are trained to think about what is best for ourselves and to look after number 1. Perhaps it should come to no surprise that part of what Paul prayed for the Colossians, people he had never met, was that they would live lives that honored God.

In order to honor and please God, I must have a knowledge of God’s will. 

The number one way to know God’s will is to be a student of Scripture. This includes personal reading and study to sitting under the instruction of qualified teachers. We need to be diligent and intentional in learning for God’s Word.

To honor and please God, I need to be a person of prayer. 

Paul prayed that God will fill the Colossians with a knowledge of His will and spiritual understanding. While it is essential for us to be intentional students of the Bible, the reality is that part of being a student is asking for help. Through prayer we can ask the Author for the help we need in understanding.

To honor and please God, I need to obey. 

It is one thing to know what to do, but it is another to do it. Remember, faith isn’t so much about believing the truth at it is about living the truth. By living out the truth we know we discover even more and deeper truths about God. 

Living out the truth isn’t just about living a moral life and going to church. It is also about bending our wills to the will of God. It is about doing those hard things that He asks us to do that we don’t want to do.

It isn’t easy to live a life that honors and pleases God. 

The easiest thing to do, in the short term, is to continue to live the way I want to live. That way of life requires little effort from me.

We were created to demonstrate God’s character, so for us to experience life at its fullest, we have to intentionally seek to do God’s will. In this way, we will live a life that honors God.

Keep Moving in the Right Direction

 I need this reminder.

With the enthusiasm of New Year's Resolutions fading away, I am guessing you may need to hear it too.

Changing our behavior is hard work and it takes time. 

Very rarely are people able to make significant life changes over night. Not only do we have undo years of habit development, but often we have to deal with our own negative self talk. 

At times it really seems like there is a part of us that doesn't want to change, regardless of how bad and unhealthy our behavior may be.

Something that I have been dealing with the last few weeks is the voice that tells me, "That is too little and too late." There is a part of me that wants me to believe that it doesn't matter what I do, all my effort will be a waste in the end. At times it feels like true lasting change is a hopeless dream.

When I listen to that voice I fall back on my old habits. When that I happens I want to throw in the towel and give up.

This is why it is crucial to remember that a mistake is not an excuse to give up. Nothing would ever change if we gave up when a mistake was made.

We need to remember that mistakes happen. They are part of learning a new skill, and it is okay if we are not perfect. The more we work on what we are changing, the easier it will become.

Remember what John wrote; "But if we confess our sins to him, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all wickedness." (1 John 1:9; NLT)

God provided a way for us to leave our sin in the past. He knew that we were going to stumble and fall, and so He made sure that even in our sin there would be an opportunity to return to Him.

Because of forgiveness, our sin is not an excuse to give up.

If that is true for sin, how much more true is it for the mistakes we make as we try to alter our habits and change our lives?

Since God forgives our sins, then we should be able to forgive ourselves of the mistakes we make, and keep moving in the direction of becoming a better person.

We Can’t Go Back

 On Monday evening I posted a screen shot of a tweet from comedian and libertarian Dave Smith to Facebook.

I think we need to ponder this reality.

No matter how much we want to go back to “normal” we can’t, things have changed.

Now it is true that things are always changing, but usually they are gradual and you don’t notice the change taking place. In this way you  are slowly conditioned to accept the change. 

Because of social media, reporting around President Trump, and especially the pandemic, the pace of change has accelerated, which has caused us to take notice of it. 

Rather than having these things happen slowly over time, they hit us right in the face.

A good example of this is Sunday worship attendance. Attendance has been trending down for years as congregations grow older and younger people stopped coming. Because of lockdowns, masks, and other restrictions, many churches have experienced a sharp decline in attendance from where they were just last year. 

These people were leaving anyway, the pandemic just made it happen faster.

Since we know we can’t go back, all we can do is to plan to go forward. As we plan to go forward we have to realize that what worked in the past will not necessarily work in the future.

Here are some of my thoughts about moving forward:

1. We need to think smaller rather than bigger. This is true for the church, where we need to concentrate on smaller gatherings. Smaller gathering are not only helpful in discipleship, but they are also helpful when limitations are put on gatherings. When things are smaller our plans are not as easily disrupted. I also think going smaller is the key to moving forward politically. One of the overlooked checks to the federal government’s power, and I believe the most important check, are the states. Washington’s power is rendered useless when the states decide not to comply with the Feds wishes. We see this as individual states legalized marijuana. The federal government doesn’t have the resources to enforce its laws across the individual states. Washington depends on the states to enforce its laws. As one of my favorite podcasters, Brion McCallahan, says, “Think locally, act locally.”
2. We need to diversify our thinking. Too many people think in binary terms. Republicans and Democrats, progressives and conservatives, racist and inclusive, etc. As someone who tends to live outside the binary bubble, I can tell you things are not that simple. When it comes to following Jesus we need to move past the tendency to judge a person’s faith and commitment to Scripture based on a few pet doctrines like the age of the earth or a premillennial interpretation of the end time. We need these different perspectives to gain a greater understanding of the Bible and following Jesus (now, this doesn’t mean everything is open to interpretation, but it does mean that when there are different perspectives we should be able to listen to them). When it comes to politics we need to break away from the strangle hold of a two party system. Having only two major parties lead to corruption as people hungry for power manipulate the system. Also, there are thousands, if not millions of people who do not line up with either a Republican or Democrat view of the world. I am one of them, and consistently we go unrepresented. Let’s bring more voices to the table and spread the responsibilities of governing to many different parties, rather than just two.
3. We need come to an understanding of the role social media plays in our lives. This is a new technology, and we don’t understand all the different ways it is effecting us. It is certainly shaping our opinions of things and making it seem like there is a greater divide between people than really exists. That is one of the reasons for the hostility that we are seeing. Social media is being used to divide us and cause us to see the other side as evil. The responsible use of social media is key to moving forward.

No matter how this election turns out, we need to understand that we aren’t going back to the way “things used to be”. 

Things have changed, and rather than complaining about that reality, we need to find a way forward.

Keep Making Progress

 

This year has been, at least emotionally, the most difficult year of my life.

It started last November with a difficult situation within our church community that caused me to doubt my leadership abilities.

Then we moved into winter, that dark time of year that causes depression in many people, myself included. My heart, mind, and soul were heavy.

We all know what happened as winter began to turn into spring - pandemic and lockdowns. I was faced with trying to pivot and provide online worship and resources for people, while not being able to meet face to face to figure things out.

In May my right leg began to hurt. I lived with the pain for a week, trying to convince myself that it wasn't what I knew it was - a blood clot. This was my second clot and I knew that I would now be on blood thinners the rest of my life.

During this time came BLM and protests, and the added pressure of trying to figure out the right things to say about an important moment in America. One of the difficulties of being a pastor is the expectation to have a position or at least a thought about everything that happens.

As things began to open up we had the great mask debate and the discussion of whether our not churches should follow the lockdown orders. After all, I was told, President Trump declared churches as essential, so we should be meeting in person.

This was followed by several families informing me they were leaving. Which again had me doubting my ability to do this job as pastor.

Even during the summer, when I am usually depression free, I found myself sinking deeper into depression.

By the end of August, I realized I needed to make a change. Not only was I depressed, but my health was being affected. I was the heaviest I had ever been in my life, I was not sleeping well, and the simplest activities were exhausting me.

The change started with my wife Jenny telling me about an app from Ransomed Heart that was created in connection with John Eldredge's book Get Your Life Back (which I haven't read) called One Minute Pause. I started doing the app every day, usually more than once a day. It helped me to reorient my life back to God.

Doing The Pause app reminded me that through the Wild at Heart website John Eldredge has a resource of prayers. I began daily praying the Daily Prayer for the Head of Households. This practice helped me to start reading the Bible daily again.

After about a month of putting prayer and Bible reading back into my daily rhythm of life, I was ready to start focusing on my physical health. There were a couple of false starts as I tried to figure out the best way to implement what I knew I was supposed to do. Even though I knew the right things to do I was having trouble doing them.

That is when I found out about another app called Noom. This app/program is designed to help you make a lifestyle change so that you can live a sustainable healthy life. Last week one of the readings that Noom had me read dealt with understanding that there would be setbacks and struggles through this process. To combat that reality I was asked to write an "Oh well" statement that I could use when I stumbled. Mine is, "Oh well, I am still making progress." 

The next day I saw this Dave Ramsey tweet:

It is a wonderful thing that we can decide to make changes in our lives. We can make today the day that change begins. It is crucial to remember this.

I also think it is crucial to remember that change is hard. It doesn't happen over night and it doesn't happen just because you know the right thing to do.

Things like overcoming depression, losing weight, getting out of debt, or decluttering your house takes time. If we expect this change to go smoothly, for our habits to shift right this moment, and for our life to be perfect tomorrow we are setting ourselves up for failure.

Making these positive changes in our lives requires time and effort, and more than likely we are going to have a moment or two when we binge on Moose Tracks Ice Cream or put a shopping spree on the credit card, or do something else dumb that we have trained ourselves to do.

That is why we have grace. 

God is not expecting us to be perfect. After all He made allowance for repentance and confession. What God is after is our continued progress towards being like Jesus.

I believe in our quest to make changes in our lives the best thing we can do is to give ourselves grace and to remember that we will stumble along the way. Understanding this helps us to own up to our failure and move on by saying, "Oh well, I am still making progress."