I know what you’re thinking right now.
You’re thinking, “No you don’t!”
I know… scary isn’t it?
Know what’s even scarier? Anybody who knows you at all can follow you around for a week and know what you’ve been thinking for the past year. That’s based, of course, on the biblical principle, “As he thinks within himself, so he is” (Proverbs 23:7).
Your life today is the result of your thinking. It may not always affect your circumstances, but it always affects your character. Your disposition. Your emotions. Your perceptions. Yes, your faith.
If you have any intention of designing a compelling future, it’s time to accept responsibility for the role your thoughts play in creating it. After all, your thoughts have produced the person you are right now.
That’s why the Bible gives such attention to your thoughts. Jesus said to love God with all your mind. Paul talks about renewing your mind, and not thinking of yourself more highly than you ought, but thinking soberly.
Recently I reread a familiar old verse and it rocked my world a little. [click to continue…]
He is jealous for me
Loves like a hurricane, I am a tree
Bending beneath the weight of His wind and mercy
“If only he can see how good I am,” Jake says to himself as he waits among the cast of thousands. “Surely he will see what Mama and my cousins all see… and maybe, just maybe I could just be the next…”
Whoa, Dawg. That’s a little pitchy for me.
On the banks of a river called Jabbock, a man watches the last of his family disappear on the other side, just as the sun begins to set. On that side of the river, judgment day awaits. For more than 20 years, Jacob has lived a charmed – and charming – life. He married the woman of his dreams, has a dozen sons and a daughter, and is a biz whiz like, well, nobody’s business.
But the time has come to face down some ghosts from his past, and demons in his soul. Jacob must face the twin he betrayed tomorrow. But tonight, he has an appointment to meet with God. And to face himself in the process.
Simon says: Absolutely dreadful.
This kind of encounter allows for no distractions of any type. [click to continue…]
The people in Pisa needed professional help. Seems their most famous landmark was, well, leaning.
Well, duh!
Actually, a few years ago someone discovered that the Tower was very slowly beginning to lean too much. So the city fathers had an emergency meeting and decided there was only one thing to do. They would bring in architects and professional builders who would make sure the tower didn’t topple over. One mandate, however: keep the tower from falling over, but don’t correct the tilt! In other words, make sure it stays like it is. After all, who would travel to see the standing Tower of Pisa?
It’s amazing the time and effort – sometimes even large amounts of money – we will invest in order to remain the same. And that in a world where the constant is change.
If you’re reading this, regardless of who you are, change is the one thing that is required of you, as well. It’s the one thing you and I have in common. It’s also the one thing we have a tendency to resist. Leo Tolstoy once said, “Everyone wants to change humanity, but no one wants to change himself.”
Jesus once told a story about a farmer, some seed, and four types of ground. The seed, He said was the “word of the Kingdom.” Only one kind of ground (a type of heart) received the seed to the degree that it made lasting change. Something would have to change about the ground to experience the maximum effect (change) of the seed.
There are four types of life change, based on the Parable of the Sower. You are somewhere on this list right now:
[click to continue…]
I know what you’re thinking right now.