Jesus

This is a guest post by Mike Mobley from Before the Cross. Mike is “Saved by grace through faith. In love with Jesus, his Glory, and obviously my beautiful wife Joelle and daughter Peyton! Seeking Him in everything to glorify Him and spread the gospel of Jesus Christ.” You can connect with him on Twitter as well. We all have opportunities from our past that we missed out on by not acting. Regrets can fill our lives. We can sulk in our guilt for and keep beating ourselves up, saying, “I could have done this. I could have done that.”The reality is, you won’t get that same chance again. To keep living in the past shows a lack of trust in God and results in a waste of time in the present. “Be strong and courageous. Do not fear or be in dread of them, for it is the LORD your God who goes with you. He will not leave you or forsake you.” – Deuteronomy 31:6 Let’s remember that for those who have a relationship with Christ, that we have God. There is no reason to fear or be afraid. Instead, be strong and courageous. God is not going to leave you or forsake you. Here is a good example from my past: ...

What gets measured gets improved. I’m reasonably obsessed with personality tests, measurements, data, information and using those tools to make better decisions. Unfortunately, I have a tendency to collect data and then do nothing with it [*”Some day I will,”* I assure myself] or to flat out collect the wrong data. **I normally measure the success of my day by how many things I accomplished and how many things I left unfinished. **I never check off all the boxes on any given day because I’m constantly thinking of more things I need (or would like) to do. Instead of evaluating my day by the number of boxes checked and list items crossed off, I felt led to completely change my method of evaluation. At the end of each day, I’ve started to ask myself these two questions. ...

Every day I talk with students who ask nearly impossible questions about Jesus, Christianity and the Bible. I don’t have all the answers (and I never will). Thankfully, that’s not what God requires of Christians to share our faith. This isn’t a perfect process, but it is a way to equip yourself in answering questions like “How can we trust the Bible?” and “Was Jesus really God?” Instead of answering specific questions, I’d rather share ways to prepare to answer tough questions and pass along a few resources you can start checking out today. The Process...

You’d be hard pressed to find a guy who thinks he’s a bad person. When I ask others how they would define a good person, the qualifications normally range from not being a murderer to never doing anything that hurts another person. Most often, I hear a good person defined as someone who does more good things than bad things. I understand. That makes complete sense if good and bad held in equal tension. Simple acts that have one-level of ramifications, here on earth. A bad thing is a withdrawal from our moral bank account and a good thing is a deposit. If I steal a candy bar, then if I give some money to charity, help an old lady cross the street, or give up my seat on a bus, than I can make up for that stolen candy bar, according to the karmic view of the world–good negates bad. If I just make sure I’ve got enough in my account to pay for the bad withdrawals, I’ll be good to go. However, according to the Bible, our bad isn’t just a withdrawal from an account. As I talk with students each day about the reality of our human condition, I’ve found one analogy in explaining the true cost of sin to be especially helpful. ...

Mike Mobley at Before the Cross invited me to guest post, and I describe how my lack of understanding of the Grand Canyon and its beauty relates to my lack of understanding about Jesus and who he is. Here’s a little taste to whet your appetite: I think, for most of us, we treat Jesus a lot like the Grand Canyon. We’ve heard a fair amount of stories. We know he’s a pretty impressive guy. ...

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. ...

_ 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.] 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. ...

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. 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....

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. ...

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. ...