40 Days of Love – Day 5

Love God with all your Mind and Strength

Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable--if anything is excellent or praiseworthy--think about such things. Philippians 4:8 (NIV)

Loving God with your mind obviously involves your thinking. The author encourages us to use the above verse as a guide for our thinking. That certainly is a challenge because so much of what surrounds us is the opposite of this verse. How then do we train our mind to think in ways that honor God?

Dr. Earl Radmacher gave a series of lectures he titled, "Right Thinking." The premise was that as we spend time with God and memorize the Scripture that then forms a filter over our minds. Then everything that comes through our eye and ear gates is filtered and also everything that comes from our minds. To have God's word filtering our thoughts both from outside and inside us. This is something I have tried to practice and in tough situations God brings to mind scripture that fits my needs at the moment. The kicker then is sin as always becomes a choice I make rather than something I was forced or coerced to do. When I practice "Right Thinking" my relationship with God grows. I am then loving God with my mind.

How do you think you "love God with your mind?

40 Days of Love Day 4

Love God with All Your Soul

Passion, Personality, Decision

Although I understand and agree with the general direction and thought of the author in this reading I think he has something backwards. I appreciated the explanation of the words used in the Old and New Testaments. These point us to passion and personality. I do not recall the soul being described as the "decision center" (my words not the author's). In the context of his writing I can understand what he is trying to say.

I do think it is important for us to love God with all we are. The author says passionately and personally. With all we are and with all we have inside us. I cannot imagine anything more bland, unattractive and dissatisfying than passionless love and yet too many of us settle for that in our relationship with God and others. I like the emphasis on loving God as only I can (personally) because I am a unique individual. This is not a license for aberrant behavior but rather a call for uniquely personal expressions, those that come from your unique personality. It is so freeing not to have to be like someone else or to do something just like someone else. God expects us to love Him as only we can. I cannot be you and you do not want to be me. Let's not look for conformity but rather for community.

The one place I think the author got it backwards if when he writes, "our soul is the expression of our life passion" (pg 50). I think our life passion is a reflection of our soul. Wilberforce was passionate about the abolition of slavery because of his soul not the other way around. Jesus said "out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks" (Matt 12:34). Out of the heart come our passions. The things you are passionate about reflect or are expressions of your soul. Now that is a sobering thought. My soul is revealed in the things I am committed to. Can I love God with a "success at any cost" soul; a "money seeking" soul; a "NASCAR" soul? On and on I could go. The answer is that God wants us to love Him with all our soul whatever its condition. He also wants to mold and shape our soul into what He wants it to be. That can only happen when I have give it all to Him.

Today I have decided to love God passionately and personally with all that I am and have.

What do you think?

40 Days of Love – Day 3

Love God With All Your Heart

    The devotion began with an interesting point and an important distinction. Knowing and feeling are not sufficient for life change. Intellectual assent or the "big time" tingles are simply not sufficient to bring about real life change. To have life change requires that we put out faith into practice. This involves our wills, our behaviors. Too often people mistake knowing and feeling for a genuine experience with the Lord. I certainly want those to be part but without the exercise of our faith in new behaviors then we are left with empty and shallow and temporary experiences.
    The heart we are talking about is not the blood pump in out chests but rather the control center of our emotions. Why are we so afraid to show our emotions in relation to our faith? I see fans get all worked up at sporting events – not afraid to show their emotions, they wear their school colors and cheer and cheer loudly. At NASCAR it seems that everyone is wearing something to let you know their favorite driver or make of car. I think we have fallen prey to the notion that to express our emotions is to somehow be intellectually dishonest or suspect, to be factually weak, or just downright ignorant. God forbid that we would ever get excited about Jesus and actually tell someone about our relationship with Him. After all isn't it the really smart seminary professors who have this all figured out? Not really. I cherish my seminary education and the time I spent with professors who loved the Lord and challenged me to learn as much as I could.
    In 1972 Dr. Earl Radmacher, president of what was then Western Conservative Baptist Seminary, gave me some advice about my education that I will never forget. He said, "Scholarship without enthusiasm leads to stagnation but enthusiasm without scholarship leads to fanaticism." You must develop both scholarship and enthusiasm. It was that advice that prompted me to go on to seminary and to continue the learning process through the years. This learning must be accompanied by continual attention to enthusiasm. As a college student there was a song that went something like this, "Get all excited, Go tell everybody that Jesus Christ is Lord."

    Today we are encouraged to love God with all our hearts, with all our emotion. I think it is a good suggestion to express yourself to God out loud. Give voice to your thoughts. Talk to your friend, Jesus. So, today I will pray out loud and express my feelings to the Lord. When I am honest about my emotions then the Lord has a chance to mold them and change them. When I am just "blowing smoke" with the Lord and telling Him what I think He wants to hear or what I think I should say, when I am not honest whit him or myself, I thwart God's opportunity to mold and change me. Today I will be honest about my feelings when I pray and anxious to see Him work in my life.

How will you express yourself to God today?

40 Days of Love - Day Two

Navel Gazing and Other Useless Activities

IF we want our lives to change it will take more than introspection. It was called "navel gazing" when I was in college. Just pondering your life and what could be better. It was to "get in touch with yourself." There is absolutely nothing wrong with "getting in touch with yourself" except that without the corresponding behavior change nothing really changes. Here we have been challenged to let Jesus give us a new set of priorities and then we must act on them. It is not good enough to just ponder or think on them. We must put them into action.

Today the reading makes us aware of "The Attraction of Lesser Things." Those things that distract us and divert our attention away from the priorities Jesus set for us. The author gave two important warnings about "lesser things":
        1. The "lesser values almost always overwhelms the greater" (p.33)
        2. "the striking thing about the lesser values is that the more of them you achieve, the more you realize how little power they have to bring fulfillment." (p.34)

That is the problem with "navel gazing" it never gets us to where we want to be. All the desire in the world cannot bring fulfillment apart from being put into practice. Things and lesser values simply cannot satisfy or fulfill our lives. We were created for more. Lesser values keep our focus on temporal things that in the long run don't matter much. That is why Jesus tells us that there is more to life than "stuff" and He wants us to trust Him with our every need. Read again what He said:

²⁵ "Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes?
Matthew 6:25 (NIV)

Today I will act on the priorities Jesus has set and seek to keep lesser thing lesser and greater things greater.

Lord keep me focused on you and your priorities today. Help me to seek after greater values and not be tripped up by seeking the lesser. Amen

40 Days of Love – Day One

For the next 40 days I am going to use the daily readings from Tom Holladay's book, The Relationship Principles of Jesus, as my daily devotional. This will be instead of my daily reading in the Life Journal.

As we embark on this 40 day journey I want to share my thoughts on the readings with you. This journey has the potential to change you forever. We live in a world of screwed up relationships and any help we can get can certainly have a major impact on our lives. I appreciate that we are not being told to "just try harder" but rather will be given handles to hang on to as we move toward loving others as Jesus would have us love them. That is a tall order but the Lord offers to empower us to do what he asks and to experience all he has for us. It will be a great journey so let's get started.

Day One - Nothing Is More Important Than Relationships

³⁰ Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.'
³¹ The second is this: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' There is no commandment greater than these."
Mark 12:30-31 (NIV)

I don't know anyone who would disagree with that statement until they look at their bank accounts or houses or cars. We say relationships are most important but our priorities reveal the truth. Too often we value things more than people. I wonder what the Lord thinks when I refuse to give to a charity in order to buy something for myself. I find that selfishness robs me for real life. Life as God intended it to be lived and experienced. I cannot receive what God has for me when my hands are closed tight around my things. God calls us to be givers especially of ourselves rather than just takers. The greatest gift I can give another is my focused attention, that is my time. So often I get to busy doing what I can in order to get more things that I neglect what is most important, time with the people the Lord has brought into my life. As I begin this 40 Days of Love journey I want to intentionally turn my focus from things to relationships and to invest quality time in growing those relationships. I hope you will join me as we invest in people not just stuff. We all have plenty of stuff so let's spend time loving each other and developing those relationships that will last forever.

Lord as I begin this journey help me to recognize when I am short changing the people in my life for the sake of things and stuff. Let me build deep and meaningful relationships that honor you and bring joy to my life. Amen

Life Journal 10-05-2008 Be Specific

Be Specific

(S) Scripture
Luke 18:41-42 (NASB77)
⁴¹ "What do you want Me to do for you?" And he said, "Lord, I want to regain my sight!"
⁴² And Jesus said to him, "Receive your sight; your faith has made you well."

(O) Observation
    This chapter in Luke is a series of parables on prayer. In it we find this encounter of Jesus with a blind man. He asks Jesus to be merciful and jesus asks him to be specific in his request. "What do you want Me to do for you?" Jesus then answered his specific request.

(A) Application
    It is easy for me to be general in my prayers. Sometimes I think I am afraid to be specific because I really don't think God will answer. If I am vague in my prayer I can make almost any outcome fit that prayer. Jesus here suggests that we be specific so that we will recognize the answer when it comes. I want to trust God that much. I want to trust Him enough to be specific when I pray.

(P) Prayer
Lord help me to be specific when I pray so that I can recognize clearly your answers. Make me aware when I am being vague or general. Amen

Life Journal 10-03-2008 Being Lowly

Being Lowly

(S) Scripture
Psalm 138:6 (NASB77)
For though the LORD is exalted, Yet He regards the lowly; But the haughty He knows from afar.

(O) Observation
    David in this psalm reminds us that God is high and lifted up. He is exalted above everything. But even in that high and lifted place He takes note of the lowly and distances Himself from the haughty and proud.
    It seems that God draws close to the humble, those who trust Him, and stays away from those who trust in themselves or something else.
    It is comforting to know that the God of Heaven chooses to come near and take care of those who trust Him. Nothing is beyond His sight and care for the lowly. The haughty are depending on their own devices and God simply observes from a distance. Nothing in the lives of the haughty escapes Him either but He keeps His distance.

(A) Application
    What does it mean to be "lowly"? This is not an endorsement or call to be weak or shy or poor as the culture would define these things. To be "lowly" means to be "humble". Humility as I understand is to see yourself as God sees you, with strengths and weaknesses. We are to recognize that the Lord is the source of all we have and that we must depend on Him for the strength and power to use what He has given to us. We are to be aware of our weaknesses and know that His strength is made perfect in our weakness. In every way I am to trust God and never depend on my own abilities and devices. When I get haughty or proud God steps away and lets me go on my own and disaster will eventually come. When I am trusting and depending on the Lord, I experience His presence, strength and nearness. When God seems distant I can be sure that I have a pride problem.
    Today I will examine my life to be sure I am trusting in the Lord and not in myself. I want to experience God's nearness continually and never for Him to be far from me.

(P) Prayer
    Lord forgive my haughtiness and pride. Too often I forget that I cannot do anything on my own. Help me to trust you more and more each day. Thank you for giving me gifts and abilities that you can use in your kingdom. I ask that you draw near to me and use me today. Amen