Tag Archives: jesus

Theology

My Morning Manifesto: How 4 Minutes Can Change Your Day

I’m forgetful. I’m a very good forgetter of important things.

Somehow, I manage to forget some of the most critical parts of my life. Like loving God and my wife. That I’ll die. My life is not a vacation. Simple things that are hard to remember all at once.

I decided it was time to write a manifesto. Things I need reminded of daily. Things I know somewhere in the deep recesses of my heart, but that I can’t seem to surface without some brain-jarring via morning reading.

I’ve printed this list out to read through each morning, before I do anything else. It takes less than 4 minutes to read aloud and it’s full of truth, high fives and pointer-fingers driven into the chest. It may seem a bit harsh at times, but it’s what I need from myself.

Feel free to remind me when you see me forgetting these things. Also, I’d love to hear if you do anything to remind yourself of truth you need to hear each morning.

morning-manifesto

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Theology

Dude, Stop Taking Things So Personally [or How To Get Over Yourself]

I take things personally far too often. I’ve known for a long time that I need to just get over myself and stop taking everything like it’s a personal attack. It’s happened multiple times today already, once over a floor mat. Yes, a floor mat. It’s out of control.

It’s difficult to lay down my right to be offended. Everything someone says, does or thinks about me is automatically filtered through my thin skin and the worst is assumed, leading to disgust, bitterness and hurt beyond what is rational. Most of the time, I’m just plain wrong in my initial assumptions and conclusions.

[Before we get too far, let me say this post isn’t meant to excuse racism or sexism or any other -ism out there. Of course oppression should be fought against. We’re evaluating taking things personally at a (here it comes) personal level. Attacks based not on your identity, but rather your personality.]

keep-calm-and-get-over-yourself

Some things roll off my back with ease–especially when an anonymous poster says something silly on my blog or when someone I don’t know makes a harsh comment (like the time I was partially verbally assaulted at a Czech symphony performance by some teenage kid. Oye). When it comes to people I care about though, it seems like my heart beats outside my skin, completely exposed and easily targeted for unintentional attack. I know I need to believe the best about the people closest to me, but for some reason, I draw conclusions and make unfair inferences that totally miss the mark.

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Theology

Diagrams for Understanding How God Reverses Idolatry

There are two analogies that have helped students I work with understand how God reorients someone’s life.

To start, God must become our first priority. Before we meet God, our priorities are all out of line. We live for money, travel, massive homes, and then our spouse and maybe our children fall in line later.

wrong priorities

If we live primarily for something or someone other than God our god can (and will) be stripped away from us. If our spouse is our god, our god can die, or leave us. If our career is our god, we could lose our job and thus lose our god.

Any god that isn’t God is temporary and untrustworthy.

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Theology

The Glory of Delayed Gratification

Delayed gratification isn’t something we excel at in America, and my generation is particularly bad at waiting. We want to live in the homes our parents saved up for decades to buy as soon as we graduate college. We want the latest Apple product, a big house, five cars, and we want it all right now.

I think the hard part of delayed gratification is (wait for it, brilliance coming in 3…2…1…) that the whole gratification process is delayed, as in not instant, not right away, not right this moment.

It’s not as convenient to have to wait to go to a store to buy a CD to listen to a song as it is to download it on our phones instantly.

It’s not as convenient to call your friend to see what they’re doing when you can just check their latest Facebook update instantly.

It’s not easy to fight sin even though we know it won’t ultimately satisfy us, because we think it will bring instant satisfaction.

Honestly, gratification that isn’t instantaneous seems pretty weak. Why wait for something better when I could have something else right now? That’s the problem with storing up treasures in heaven where Jesus reminds us they won’t rust or be stolen (or be outdated months later by the next version or model).

Jesus doesn’t tell us we shouldn’t seek treasures. He just tells us to seek the better treasure.

The better treasures are the ones we’ll have forever, but they aren’t tangible right now. We can’t touch them or download apps on them, but they are better and eternal and, ultimately, far more satisfying.

In the midst of a world that says now, faster, sooner, we have to say, later, slower, better.

The joy of giving up current, fleeting pleasures and rust-prone treasures for ultimate, God-glorifying, crowns to lay at the foot of the throne of Christ in heaven is unimaginable.

But just close your eyes and try to to imagine how beautiful that will be. Let that moment when you exalt the King of kings, the Lord of lords, the God of the universe with the treasures you saved up just for Him drive you to say no to the immediate and yes to the ultimate.

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Theology

How Would Jesus Do This?

What Would Jesus Do dominated wristbands in the 90s (but it’s hard to give much credit to 90s trends when dressing like the Fresh Prince was cool and wearing backwards pants was totally acceptable).

In reality, the WWJD bands caused people to pause and ponder what Jesus would do in their shoes. It’s a great question for analyzing situations and (hopefully) making good decisions based on how we think the Messiah would respond.

But being like Jesus isn’t just doing what he would do. It’s about thinking how he would think too.

As I think about stewarding my time, resources, and abilities, I’m beginning to ask myself, “How would Jesus do this?”

How would Jesus share the gospel with his family?
How would he make disciples in the 21st century?
How would Jesus spend his time?
How would Christ compel others to live for God if he was giving a lecture today?
How would he respond to an atheist?

As I ask myself, “How would Jesus do this,” and read about his life in the Bible, I’m convinced that he wouldn’t just slop together work or participate half-heartedly in conversations.

He was a student of his disciples and the people he talked with. He did an incredible job of asking heart-level questions that cleared away the clutter, distractions and barriers in conversations. Jesus took his time when others thought he should hurry along (in the case of his friend Lazarus), and he withdrew when others thought he should stick around (like when they tried to make him a politician).

You don’t have an infinite source of divine knowledge like Jesus, and you probably don’t know any lepers to heal, even if you were able. But Christians certainly have the ability to listen to the promptings of the Holy Spirit, turn to God’s Word for direction, and trust the promise of Jesus that we’d do greater works than he did.

All we have to do is seek God’s wisdom as we ask, “How would Jesus do this?”

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