Exploring the Possibilities

Gift Lift: Ten MORE Spiritual Gifts You Won’t Find in the Bible

by Andy Wood on March 10, 2016

in Ability, Consumers, Exploring the Possibilities, Life Currency, LV Alter-egos, LV Cycle, Spoofs

Microfono sala conferenze

I have news.

Big news. News some of you have been waiting four years to hear.  And you can say you read about it first here.

I am pleased to announce that the Spiritual Gifts Commissary (SGC), after lots of coffee, reviews of old church bulletins, and listening to hours of Spurgeon sermons on cassettes, has officially declared a new collection of Ten Spiritual Gifts You Won’t Find in the Bible.

This is exciting.

No longer are you limited to a narrow list of spiritual gifts found in places like Romans 12, Ephesians 4, or 1 Corinthians 12.  The Holy Ghost can manifest Himself in all sorts of ways.  Still skeptical? Consider this:  Past surveys have indicated that more than 20% of American Christians claim to have spiritual gifts never mentioned in scripture.

That many fired and wired believers couldn’t possibly be wrong.

Right?

Anyway, by definition, a spiritual gift is an unusual ability to demonstrate God’s life and power in ways that can’t be explained by talent or random circumstances. And according to the Bible, all believers have some sort of spiritual gifting.

But what? How can you know?

That’s where the SGC comes in.  In addition to the 17 gifts mentioned in scripture, they have explored other ways that people in Church World demonstrate such other-worldly force, it must be a gift.  Possibilities include the gift of condemnation, complication, or word of ignorance.  It would be well worth the time to review the original list here. Or even better, check out the lists here and here.  Who knows? Maybe the pointing towards your anointing can be found tucked away in one of those.

But wait! There’s more!  Here, in alphabetical order, are ten more Church World manifestations that may well explain how you or someone you put up with love are endowed. [click to continue…]

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How Will You Draw Yourself into the Story?

by Andy Wood on March 7, 2016

in Consumers, Exploring the Possibilities, Insight, Life Currency, LV Alter-egos, LV Cycle, Photos

One of Laura Kate's many insertions.

One of Laura Kate’s many insertions.

Take a gander at my seven-year-old granddaughter’s impressive collection of books and you’ll find something very interesting. In volume after volume, page after page, she has drawn a picture of herself.

Ask her why, and she’ll reply, matter-of-factly, “I wanted to draw myself into the story.”

This isn’t just about a second-grader’s imagination. It’s about an entire culture. Laura Kate is just one poster child among millions who have quietly (or not-so-quietly) gone about rewriting the rules for just about everything, from entertainment to technology, to politics and even religion.

I wanted to draw myself into the story. [click to continue…]

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Two Kinds of Excellence

by Andy Wood on January 25, 2016

in Enlarging Your Capacity, Exploring the Possibilities, Five LV Laws, Insight, Leadership, Life Currency, LV Cycle, Principle of Increase, Principle of Legacy

Pavarotti-Brooks

The late Luciano Pavarotti holds the Guiness World Record for the most curtain calls by a singer or actor – a staggering 165. Together with Placido Domingo and Jose Carreras, he sang in the biggest-selling classical record of all time.

When Pavarotti sang, no one sang along.  They would sit breathlessly, passively, allowing themselves to be carried away by the extraordinary power of the tenor’s voice.

“Excellent” hardly conveys the talent the world lost on September 6, 2007.

Garth Brooks is the greatest-selling albums artist in the U.S. since 1991 and the second-best-selling solo artist of all time in the U.S. His concerts literally sell out in 15 minutes. And when he takes the stage he takes his audience with him.

When Garth Brooks sings, if you don’t sing along you look a little strange. Take it from experience, if you don’t know all the words you’ll act like you do.

Excellent? Oh my yes, in a completely different way. [click to continue…]

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Offering Your Ordinary – What to Do With Your Mediocre Middle

by Andy Wood on January 13, 2016

in Ability, Allocating Your Resources, Exploring the Possibilities, Five LV Laws, Life Currency, LV Cycle, Principle of Freedom

Average Guy

What are you good at? I mean, really good? When people ask you about your strengths, what are your boilerplate answers?

Now, the dreaded weaknesses. What are those things you repeatedly tell people or God or yourself that you need to work on and improve?

Now I’m sure as soon as you read those questions, the ready answers showed up. And at some point you’ve probably had the tug-of-war about which you should work on – do you leverage your strengths or work on your weaknesses?

Uh huh.

Now take both of those mental lists and set them aside for a minute. Let’s boldly go where no one dares to go…

Let’s talk about your mediocre middle.

See, none of us are awesome at everything, and none of us is terrible at everything. A significant part of your life falls somewhere in the middle. And because it isn’t all that remarkable, you just don’t give it that much attention.

Too bad, since that’s where most of us live most of our lives. [click to continue…]

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God Isn’t Fixing This – But He Can

by Andy Wood on December 4, 2015

in Ability, Exploring the Possibilities, Five LV Laws, Gamblers, Life Currency, LV Alter-egos, LV Cycle, Photos, Principle of Freedom, Tense Truths, Words

Daily News Headline

Back in the late sixties and early 70s we gathered around our TV sets with the three available channels on Monday nights for Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-in on NBC.

One of the repeated gags on the lightning-fast show was the old joke from the diner, “Waiter, there’s a fly in my soup.” I remember in one episode, the waiter is behind the counter and seven or eight people sitting at the bar say, one right after another, “Waiter, there’s a fly in my soup.” Whoever was playing the waiter went down the counter, spewing out one punch line after another. Sorry, can’t find the YouTube clip for that, but it went something like this:

There’s a fly in your soup? Keep it down sir, or they’ll all be wanting one.

There’s a fly in your soup? Sorry sir, guess I forgot it when I removed the other three.

There’s a fly in your soup? Then we’ve served you too much soup, the fly should be wading.

There’s a fly in your soup? Couldn’t be, sir. The cook used them all in the raisin bread.

There’s a fly in your soup? It’s OK, Sir, there’s no extra charge!

There’s a fly in your soup? No sir, that’s a cockroach, the fly is on your steak.

There’s a fly in your soup? What do you expect? It’s fly soup.

Call me weird, but that’s one of the first things I thought of when I read the headline of the New York Daily News in the immediate wake of the devastating shootings in San Bernadino – yet another American city whose name has become synonymous with mass murder.

GOD ISN’T FIXING THIS, the headline blasted, riffing on and ripping the condolence statements of Republican presidential candidates. [click to continue…]

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Why You Feel So Marginalized

by Andy Wood on November 9, 2015

in Enlarging Your Capacity, Esteem, Exploring the Possibilities, Life Currency, Love, LV Cycle

Spring tulip fields in Holland, Netherlands

According to the experts in global culture, setting aside specific countries or tribes, you belong to one of 10 primary social groups: Anglo, Germanic, Latin European, African, Eastern European, Middle Eastern, Confucian, Southeast Asian, Latin American, and Nordic.

One in 10 – that alone makes you pretty statistically insignificant.

Broadly speaking, again setting aside the ever-increasing labels for new “communities” springing up, three genders have been formally recognized at a government level somewhere in the world – male, female, and transgender. Factor that into the previous set of distinctions, and move over – now you’re one in 30. [click to continue…]

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What if God Isn’t Fighting Anymore?

by Andy Wood on November 6, 2015

in Esteem, Exploring the Possibilities, Five LV Laws, Life Currency, LV Cycle, Principle of Freedom

Boxing Gloves

How would it change the way you approached God if you knew – with confidence – that He was not angry with you? Or even arguing, wrestling or wearying you?

Take a look at this promise:

“For I will not contend forever,
Nor will I always be angry;
For the spirit would grow faint before Me,
And the breath of those whom I have made” (Isaiah 57:16).

The essential Old Testament story of the relationship between God and man is one of contention. The Lord had His standards – His Law. Man had his willful rebellion and sinful nature – so bad, even the finest of heroes is revealed as deeply flawed.

But in the verse above the Lord reveals another side to His character, and promises another kind of relationship. It will be one not based on contention or anger, but on revival and rebuilding.

I thought you should know today that this promise has been fulfilled. God is not contending anymore. He’s out of the wrestling business. [click to continue…]

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How Well Do You Grok?

by Andy Wood on November 2, 2015

in Esteem, Exploring the Possibilities, Five LV Laws, Leadership, Life Currency, Love, LV Cycle, Principle of Increase

Business people

It’s a Martian word, so you probably don’t hear it a lot down here, unless you move in some hipster or techie circles. It’s a darkly guttural word that sounds something like a bullfrog in a fight with a cat, so it lacks a certain sense of poetry.

But it’s an important word to describe a unique and powerful ability that can separate:

  • leaders from posers,
  • successful marketers from annoying advertisers,
  • elected officials from also-rans,
  • spiritual shepherds from obnoxious preachers,
  • faithful, lifelong friends or marriage partners from relational flame-outs,
  • Oprah from, well, anybody (okay, just kidding… a little).

I’m referring, of course, to grokking. [click to continue…]

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Welcome to Your Millennium

by Andy Wood on September 30, 2015

in Exploring the Possibilities, Five LV Laws, Life Currency, LV Cycle, Principle of Eternity, Time

Air India Memorial Ireland

Okay, confession time. I have to admit I let something escape my notice.

And I wasn’t supposed to.

In fact the Bible says, Don’t let this fact escape your notice.

I let that escape my notice, too.

I’m starting to see a pattern here… my notice has holes in it.

Anyway, it’s on my radar now, and I’m noticing like crazy.

Here’s what I’m talking about…

But do not let this one fact escape your notice, beloved, that with the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years like one day (2 Peter 3:8).

Oh, that.

We all know what that means, right? [click to continue…]

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The Playground Pathway to Grownup Greatness

by Andy Wood on September 18, 2015

in 100 Words, Exploring the Possibilities, Five LV Laws, Insight, Life Currency, LV Cycle, Principle of Legacy

Shadows

“What I’m about to tell you is true. You need to change and become like little children. If you don’t, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Anyone who takes the humble position of this child is the most important in the kingdom of heaven. Anyone who welcomes a little child like this one in my name welcomes me” (Matthew 18:3-5, NIRV).

What started as an argument over greatness ended in one brief demonstration.

The greatest, Jesus said, was the one who humbled himself as a little child.

What’s the difference between that and typical adulthood? [click to continue…]

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