Igift?

In German, the word Gift means poison!

(A friend of ours wondered one time why a lady in the store gave her an odd look when she noticed “baby gift” on her shopping list!)

Anyway, I got a great gift for Christmas. My son (we exchanged names this year) -- at my request -- gave me a new MP3 device.  I quickly got my NLT Bible and the audio version of John on it. Wow -- amazing tool -- portable and ready at all times.

But it can be so much more. Unlike its poorer cousins, this one features APPS!

Thousands and thousands of apps! Lots are free, you can download them and suddenly -- another time sucker! Another distraction. Another substitute for reality and authenticity.

A device to remind me to worship my God! 

Or…something else...to keep me far from His presence. 

This morning 1 John 5:21 came home. Dear children, keep away from anything that might take God’s place in your hearts. (NLT)

Individualism and Commitment

American cultural traditions define personality, achievement, and the purpose of human life in ways that leave the individual suspended in glorious, but terrifying, isolation. From Habits of the Heart: Individualism and Commitment in American Life

Choices can change the heart

How does a lapse of faith occur? Very simply: one begins to live like everybody else.  Leo Tolstoy

Thanksgiving: antidote for grumbling

Dr. Dale Robbins writes, “I used to think people complained because they had a lot of problems.  But I have come to realize that they have problems because they complain. Complaining doesn’t change anything or make situations better.  It amplifies frustration, spreads discontent and discord, and can invoke an invitation for the devil to cause havoc with our lives.”  

Complaining makes us miserable!

SO busy!

I wondered to myself this morning: has any academic ever taken the time to calculate how much time we give to convincing others around us how busy we are?

Samuel Adams on commitment

Before the Revolutionary War began Samuel Adams issued a gut check to his fellow colonists who would dare to call themselves Americans. 

If you love wealth greater than liberty, the tranquility of servitude greater than the animating contest for freedom, go home from us in peace. We seek not your counsel, nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you; May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen. 

Another great charge to commit or forget about it -- to follow through with abandon or abandon all attempt, because no middle ground can be tolerated in regard to supreme causes. 

Anyone who puts a hand to the plow and then looks back is not fit for the Kingdom of God. Luke 9.62.

Not a spectator sport

In the Kingdom of God, no one can see so long as he remains merely a spectator. Nathan Soderbloom