Category: Character (Page 2 of 5)

Seven Words

December 6, 2023 / BroClo-Blogger-2022 / 1 Comment

“Teach her as many of the 700,000 words of the English language as you have time to but be sure she knows that the greatest word is God; the longest word eternity; the swiftest word time; the nearest word now; the darkest word sin; the meanest word hypocrisy; and the deepest word soul.”
To Lt. Cdr. J. P. Carr, from his father, on the birth of the younger Carr’s daughter.

God. Eternity. Time. Now. Sin. Hypocrisy. Soul.

These are more than words, they’re realities. They attempt to encapsulate the most profound and important concepts that we humans face during our earthly existence. They’re small words that describe great ideas.

The infinite God has communicated with finite humanity through the medium of language, by means of words. Jesus himself was “THE WORD”: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (John 1.1). He was God’s ultimate communication to us.

In a similar way, the Bible is God’s word to man. “Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth” (John 17.17). By means of these words, God has conveyed what’s truly important and valuable. Wrap your head around that. Eternal truth expressed in finite, human language.

I’d like to challenge you to do two things. First, think about the seven words from our starting quotation: God, eternity, time, now, sin, hypocrisy, and soul. How have these words shaped your life? How do you use them as motivation for spiritual living?

Second, make out a list of seven other words that challenge you, define you, inspire you, or even terrify you. What are the significant words in your life? Make your list and for the next week, think about one word each day. Consider how this word affects you. Look at how the Bible treats the word or concept. Think about what you can do with that word to change your life for the better.

George Herbert said, “Good words are worth much, and cost little.” For today, and every day, take time to think about the important words that shape your life.

Facing Goliath

October 11, 2023 / BroClo-Blogger-2022 / 0 Comments

The human capacity for worry is staggering. We worry about money. We worry about relationships. We worry about our health. We worry about our city and country. We worry about crime, inflation, politics, racism, ageism, and gender discrimination. We worry about children, our spouses, our parents, and our pets. We worry about pretty much everything.

More specifically, much of our anxiety is about the unknown. We worry because we don’t know the outcome. We worry about what will happen to our money and health and marriages and children and country. And we wonder if the struggle is worth it.

I have a simple solution.

Recall the story of David and Goliath. In 1 Samuel 17, the Israelites and Philistines are in a stalemate. The Philistines have challenged Israel to a winner-takes-all contest between their champion warrior Goliath, and whomever the Israelites could send. Nobody from Israel is willing to fight. That is, until David shows up.

Imagine if this were a modern basketball game. It’s late in the second half. The score is tied, but momentum has shifted to the visiting team. All the home team starters have fouled out, and their superstar center is dominating the game. Only one player is left, the shortest man on the team with the least experience. Who thinks it’s a good idea to send him in?

But remember David’s words as he faced the giant from Gath – “The battle is the Lord’s” (1 Samuel 17.47). He wasn’t worried about the specifics; he wasn’t worried about the struggle. He knew up front that God would determine the outcome. That gave him the assurance he needed to enter the fray, to fight the battle, to persevere in conflict, and to remain true to his calling.

Oh, and he also won the battle.

Rather than being afraid of what might happen, rather than expecting the worst possible outcome, we should adopt David’s strategy. Do what we can and let God decide the outcome.

For today and every day remember that “the battle is the Lord’s”.

Astonishing

October 4, 2023 / BroClo-Blogger-2022 / 0 Comments

Always do right. This will gratify some and astonish the rest!
Mark Twain

Doing right is at the heart of a relationship with God. The apostle Peter said, “in every nation the man who fears [God] and does what is right is welcome to Him” (Acts 10.36). To be right with God means that we must do right.

This may explain why the world hates righteousness and righteous people. Peter also said, “such is the will of God that by doing right you may silence the ignorance of foolish men” (1 Peter 2.15). The world may slander us for doing right, but doing right is its own best defense.

It’s sad that the business of doing right has such an effect on people around us. Some may be astonished because they see so little righteousness in our world. They’re skeptical, even cynical, and learn to expect the worst. To them, doing right is astonishing because it’s so rare.

Others may be astonished when they see us doing right because sometimes we don’t do it enough. If that’s the case, the problem isn’t with them, it’s with us. We need to repent.

When we try to do the right thing and the world pushes back against us, what then? The apostle Paul said, “if your enemy is hungry, feed him, and if he is thirsty, give him a drink; for in so doing you will heap burning coals on his head. Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.” (Romans 12.20-21).

The best way to get even with others, the best way to astonish them, the best way to counter the evil in the world, and the best way to glorify God is to do what’s right. First, last, and always.

So, get busy and astonish someone today!

When Your Feet Hit the Floor

September 20, 2023 / BroClo-Blogger-2022 / 0 Comments

“Be the kind of woman who, when her feet hit the floor in the morning, causes the Devil to say, ‘Oh no – she’s up!’”
Joanne Clancy, Irish Author

I don’t have any context for this quotation, so I’m not sure if it’s meant in a positive way or a negative way.

On the one hand, it could be referring to some women who are so thoroughly bad, that even the Devil trembles. Biblically, I think of King Ahab’s evil wife, Queen Jezebel. I think of their daughter Athaliah, who killed her own grandchildren so she could become queen. I think of Herodias, who engineered the beheading of John the Baptist. Some folks are so bad that they can give Satan a run for his money.

I prefer to think of it in a good way, and not just about women. I’d like to think that when we Christians arise each day – when our feet hit the floor – we’re prepared to do battle with Satan.

On one hand, that’s a scary proposition. In Ephesians 6.12, Paul said “For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places.” Satan has power and lots of help.

On the other hand, we have God’s power and weaponry available. In this same text, Paul goes on to describe in detail the armor of God, which is at our disposal. He says in verse 13 “Therefore, take up the full armor of God, so that you will be able to resist in the evil day, and having done everything, to stand firm.”

Elsewhere, in 2 Corinthians 10.4, Paul also said that “the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but divinely powerful for the destruction of fortresses.” Christians have the most potent arsenal available. Each day presents an opportunity to war mightily against Satan and his forces.

Finally, we need the assurance that Satan can be withstood. “Resist the devil, and he will flee from you,” was James’ counsel (James 4.7). Ultimately Satan prefers battles he knows he can win. He has little interest in a battle he knows he will lose. Stand firm, and Satan will run.

For today and every day, make the Devil regret that you ever got out of bed! When your feet hit the floor, be ready for a fight!

Me. Now.

September 14, 2023 / BroClo-Blogger-2022 / 2 Comments

“If not us, who? If not now, when?”
Variously attribtued to Rabbi Hillel, JFK, Ronald Reagan, et al.

Regardless of who said it, it’s a powerful call to action. It appeals to our sense of duty and to our sense of urgency. For Christians, these two appeals should be especially compelling.

Christians should have a strong sense of duty.

Jesus said, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments” (John 14.15).
Jesus said, “If you know these things, you are blessed if you do them” (John 13.17).
Paul said, “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them” (Ephesians 2.10).

Christians must also have a strong sense of urgency about our work.

Paul said, “Therefore be careful how you walk, not as unwise men but as wise, making the most of your time, because the days are evil” (Ephesians 5.15-16).
James said, “Therefore, to one who knows the right thing to do and does not do it, to him it is sin” (James 4.17).

No one in this world is better equipped than God’s people to act boldly and swiftly in a sinful world.

Who’s better equipped than children of God to care for the sick and dying?
Who better than children of God to show compassion to the hurting and lonely?
Who better than children of God to demonstrate divine love to the unloved?
Who better than children of God to speak the truth?
Who better than children of God to stand up for what is right?
Who better than children of God to exhibit hope in the midst of despair?
Who better than children of God to act with wisdom in a world gone mad?

Have I prepared myself to engage? Have you?

If not us, who? If not now, when?

Your Happy Place

August 16, 2023 / BroClo-Blogger-2022 / 0 Comments

“Happiness cannot be traveled to, owned, earned, worn or consumed.
Happiness is the spiritual experience of living every minute
with love, grace and gratitude.”
Denis Waitley

Waitley is a popular, long-time motivational speaker and writer. I remember attending a “Seeds of Greatness” seminar in college sponsored by his organization. If memory serves me correctly, I think his Seeds of Greatness was the first motivational book I ever bought.

His quotation is a good starting point for thinking about happiness. First, happiness isn’t a thing. It’s not something apart from us that we go and get. It’s not something to be purchased or acquired or traded.

Second, as Waitley says, it’s a “spiritual experience”. Happiness is the melding of our experiences and our beliefs. Whatever we experience: good things or bad, success or failure, sickness or health, wealth or poverty, good relationships or bad, all of these are shaped by our belief system. Happiness is looking at our experiences in a biblical and constructive way.

Third, Waitley notes that happiness requires “love, grace and gratitude.” Biblically speaking, we are recipients of the first two, and cultivators of the last one. Regarding love and grace, the apostle Paul said, “The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, be with you all” (2 Corinthians 13.14). If we receive love and grace, we must learn to extend love and grace if we want to find this thing called happiness.

Regarding gratitude, Paul also said, “Rejoice always. Pray without ceasing. In everything give thanks, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus” (1 Thessalonians 5.16-18). In other words, gratitude is a choice, and an action, and a frame of mind that’s cultivated by means of our relationship to God in Christ.

We often speak of our “happy place.” Happiness isn’t so much a place as it is a way of thinking. With the right frame of mind, you can be in your “happy place” no matter where you are.

Compassion Fatigue

June 22, 2023 / BroClo-Blogger-2022 / 0 Comments

The clinical term is secondary traumatic stress syndrome. A more euphemistic term is compassion fatigue. What most of us call it is burnout.

It’s when you feel like you have no more empathy to give. It’s a feeling of helplessness in the face of helping others who are suffering in some way. It’s the loss of joy when giving help.

It’s normally associated with people who are in the care-giving business: first-responders, healthcare workers, therapists, military personnel, social workers, and ministers. Experts have noted, however, that more and more the general public is experiencing it because of constant bombardment with appeals for charity and the pervasiveness of crime. When you’re tired of doing good and skeptical that it even matters, you’re suffering from compassion fatigue.

I think the apostle Paul was familiar with the concept. Although I doubt that he looked at it in a clinical way, he understood the tendency to get tired of doing good for others. In the book of Galatians, he said, “Let us not lose heart in doing good, for in due time we will reap if we do not grow weary. So then, while we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, and especially to those who are of the household of the faith” (Galatians 6.9-10).

He was writing to the churches of Galatia who had been fighting among themselves about their salvation. Were people justified before God by faith in Christ or by the Law of Moses? Their disagreements led to strife and disagreement. They were tired of fighting and Paul offered them a better way.

In chapter five, he told them to walk by the Spirit and not by the flesh. Then in chapter six he follows this with practical exhortations about how to treat one another in Christ. It ends with the two verses we just read, where he told them to look for opportunities to do good. But he warns them that doing good can be a tiresome exercise, so he encourages them to not become weary in well doing, and not to lose heart about it. Negatively, don’t stop doing good. Positively, continue always in doing good.

By way of commentary, John Wesley (1703-1791) is credited with saying, “Do all the good you can, by all the means you can, in all the ways you can, in all the places you can, at all the times you can, to all the people you can, as long as ever you can.”

For today and every day, do some good.

Confession

May 17, 2023 / BroClo-Blogger-2022 / 1 Comment

We learn from an early age how to shift blame.

“It wasn’t my fault; it was the dog’s!”
“My grades would’ve been better if the teacher was nicer to me!”
“The coach is mean.”
“Sissy did it!”

Perhaps we learned it from our siblings or parents. Maybe we heard Dad blaming Mom for his bad mood. Maybe our older siblings blamed us for everything, and we returned the favor.

It’s not a new problem. The very first sin brought finger-pointing. After Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit, they tried to hide from God, but God tracked them down and confronted them. God asked Adam if he had disobeyed, and Adam blamed Eve. God asked Eve what she had done, and she blamed the serpent. See Genesis 3.8-13.

What God wanted was for Adam and Eve to own up to their failures. At that point, the deed was done and couldn’t be undone. God was testing their character. Having failed the obedience test, would they at least pass the integrity test? Would they take ownership of their sin?

The Bible urges us to confess our sins. It allows us to rid ourselves of the toxic spiritual residue of our sins and brings us a step closer to reconciliation with God.

“For I confess my iniquity; I am full of anxiety because of my sin” (Psalm 38.18).
“He who conceals his transgressions will not prosper, but he who confesses and forsakes them will find compassion” (Proverbs 28.13).
“Therefore, confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another so that you may be healed. The effective prayer of a righteous man can accomplish much” (James. 5.16).
“If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1.9).

King David learned this the hard way. After committing adultery with Bathsheba, after murdering her husband Uriah, and after marrying her in a feeble effort to hide his sin, David pretended for at least a year that nothing had happened (2 Samuel 11). God finally confronted David through the prophet Nathan, and David confessed (2 Samuel 12).

David later said, “When I kept silent about my sin, my body wasted away through my groaning all day long. For day and night Your hand was heavy upon me; my vitality was drained away as with the fever heat of summer. I acknowledged my sin to You, and my iniquity I did not hide; I said, ‘I will confess my transgressions to the LORD”; and You forgave the guilt of my sin’” (Psalm 32.3-5).

Silence has its price. Confession has its reward.

Motivation & Honesty

May 3, 2023 / BroClo-Blogger-2022 / 0 Comments

As a preacher, I frequently deal in the currency of motivation. Part of what I do is attempt to keep fellow Christians and church members motivated to do the work of the kingdom.

Some Christians are highly motivated and rarely need help from me. Others are motivated only to the extent that there’s something in it for them, some tangible reward, usually in the form of trumpet-blowing. Some seem to struggle with motivation at the most basic level. They seem unable or unwilling to do the most basic forms of service. I may push, pull, beg, pressure, and howl, but nothing happens.

Regarding motivation, Oswald Chambers once wrote, “Our Lord never pleaded, He never cajoled, He never entrapped; He simply spoke the sternest words mortal ears ever listened to, and then left it alone.”

Chambers’ comments raise an interesting question: How motivated am I to do what’s right? What really moves me to serve Jesus? Do I really care? I should be careful how I answer. Because, if I must constantly be goaded, pressed, embarrassed, pushed, or shoved before I’m willing to act, it would seem that doing right isn’t my highest priority.

Too many Christians fall into this category. We say we’re followers of Jesus, but we seem awfully casual about the whole thing. We say we want to do right, that we want to serve, but we act only when we’re pushed to the limit.

This may provide some insight into Jesus’ Parable of the Sower (Luke 8.4-8). In the parable, a farmer sows seed on different kinds of soil and, consequently, gets different yields from each soil. Some of the soil is packed down and won’t grow anything. Some of it is shallow, with a layer of rock underneath. Some of it full of thorns. Some of it is good, clean soil.

When Jesus explained the parable, he said that “the seed in the good soil, these are the ones who have heard the word in an honest and good heart, and hold it fast, and bear fruit with perseverance” (Luke 8.15). The honest heart is the one who takes the Word of God and simply obeys it. There’s no resistance, no argument, and no excuse.

In other words, honesty is the linchpin of the machinery of spiritual motivation. A dishonest person will never have sufficient motivation to act upon the commands of God.

If you’re struggling with your motivation to serve God, the first thing to look at is your heart. Are you motivated for the right reasons? Bottom line: Are you honest?

Roots

April 12, 2023 / BroClo-Blogger-2022 / 1 Comment

This time of year, many of us are already gardening, planting, fertilizing, weeding, landscaping, spraying, pruning, and all kinds of other springtime agricultural rituals.

The key to growing anything – grass, flowers, vegetables, shrubs, trees – is developing a good root system. Plants depend upon the nutrients and moisture provided by the soil. The deeper and more extensive a plant’s root system, the more it will be able to survive drought, wind, disease, and pests.

So it is with our growth as Christians. We can’t grow without deep, healthy roots. The apostle Paul prayed for the saints in Ephesus “that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; and that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God” (Ephesians 3.17-19). Before they can grow upward, they need to first grow downward.

Paul had a similar exhortation for the Christians in Colossae. “Therefore as you have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him, having been firmly rooted and now being built up in Him and established in your faith, just as you were instructed, and overflowing with gratitude” (Colossians 2.6-7). Growth, gratitude, and a deep faith are impossible without a deep root system.

That’s why regular spiritual disciplines and practices are so essential to the formation of our faith. Bible reading, meditation, memorization, and study are building blocks of spiritual maturity. We need the daily challenge of personal Bible study as well as the weekly opportunity to study with other Christians. Prayer is an opportunity to expand our root system by expressing gratitude and praise to God, as well as offering our petitions to him. Worship keeps us vital and strong. It provides nourishment and refreshment from the harsh realities of life. It gets us in the presence of God and in the presence of his people. It puts our minds on a higher plane awhile each week.

So, while you’re thinking about taking care of your lawn and garden, take a bit of time to nourish your soul. Get some water and feed, pull some weeds, and get ready to grow.