Falling Away

One of the easiest ways to fall away from following God is to look at our present problems and exaggerate them. We give our problems more credit than they deserve - and spend our time telling God how big and powerful our problems are - instead of telling our problems how big and powerful our God is. It causes us to lose our right perspective on both our problems and God!

Worshipping Idols

Idol worship is self-centered, focusing on what we can get from that which we purport to worship. the worship of God is the opposite. True believers are to be selfless. We are to serve Him and worship Him, expecting nothing in return. More importantly, we are to serve and worship God - knowing that we nothing is exactly what we deserve.

Disobedient Children

A child who knowingly disobeys his or her parents is, in reality, challenging their authority - and dares them to respond to that challenge. If they don't they are, in effect - surrendering their authority to the child!

Lust is Born

When you become pre-occupied with something until it affects your perspective on everything else, you have moved from desire to lust. Most of us travel such a journey without ever realizing it.

Self-Sufficiency

From an early age (usually as toddlers) we start thinking, "I can do it myself." Self sufficiency becomes a virtue in our minds that we strive for. Being independent, doing things on our own and especially not being beholding or needy of others are viewed as good things. However, the true result of self-sufficiency is torment. We are walking by our own light and not God's - so He will oppose us. Self-sufficiency can never deliver on its promise.

Pride's Control

Taking credit, even in your own mind, for the accomplishments or contributions of others is a sure sign that pride is controlling you!

Resisting Change

Stability in life does not come from a lack of change. Rather stability in life is the product of moving with God through life's turbulence. Said another way, stability in life comes from walking through change - hand-in-hand with God.

Making Changes

Many times we intentionally make changes in our lives, expecting those changes to produce different lives. We will move from one place to another, change the people we associate with, change our profession, change churches, etc. But such changes only distract us from the need for a real change in our hearts. As a result, they are most unlikely to be satisfying changes.

Understanding God

We limit our understanding of God when we compare or contrast Him to what we experience or have experienced here on earth. God the Father is not even similar to the father figures I may have experienced here on earth. God's love is not like the love most of us have experienced here on earth. God's grace is not like the grace we typically show to each other. Indeed, God and all of His attributes are much bigger than anything we can experience on earth.

Ineffective People

People don't have to be sinful in order to be ineffective for God. They only need to be ignorant of or confused about what God wants. Ignorance and confusion are just as reliable in keeping us from acting as anything else. Put another way, Satan doesn't have to turn us away from God in order to make us ineffective Christians. He simply needs to keep us ignorant of God's truth or confuse us a little. Either way, we'll fail to act on God's will for our lives.

Evil Faced

Conflict with evil is really inevitable for true Christ followers. Satan is a committed enemy of Christ. So it is impossible for us to truly follow Christ without encountering His arch enemy. We should be merciless at rooting out sin in our lives - or other influences of evil.

Dissatisfaction

Dissatisfaction comes about when we turn our focus from what we have to what we don't have. It really is that simple.

Why We Sin

We all have a sin nature, but understanding why we sin isn't that complicated. Typically there are three (3) basic motives for sin:

1. Committed unintentionally.
We did it without realizing it was a sin or without realizing that we did it.

2. Committed out of weakness or negligence.
We did it because we were not focused on doing right, and just drifted by default to wrong.

3. Committed out of rebellion.
We knew it was wrong when we did it, but just didn't care.

Of course, none of these are reasons any of us would be proud of. So if I say that I "struggle with" some sin or sin pattern in my life, then I really just have to ask myself which of these three underlying explanations is applicable to that struggle.

Leadership Privilege

Leadership's special privileges can cause leaders to either sacrifice for the good of their people or to sacrifice their people for their own greed. Which leader will you be?

Strength & Ability

God gives each of us strengths and abilities that will find their greatest usefulness only when we are fully surrendered and submitted to God. So strengths or abilities, even when they are God-given, are only folly if there is no surrender or submission.

Understanding Jesus

People naturally miss the importance of Jesus' life and work. His death on the cross, for example, tends to sound abstract - a reality that we don't naturally grasp. We need faithful Christians - spiritually mature in their own nature - to point out and teach us of Christ's extraordinary nature and character. (Typically such people are provided and led by the Holy Spirit.)

Finding Relief

Many people cry out for relief from suffering, seeking comfort and security. But we often have not taken the first steps to turn away from sin and trust in God. We have not fully repented of our sin or fully put our trust in God - even though we say that we have. In other words, the root cause of our pain and suffering may not be the circumstances of our suffering. Rather the root cause is the denial we have about our relationship with God.

Obedience & Worship

If we are to be God's people, we must be obedient to Him, and we must worship Him honestly and sincerely. Otherwise, we are only fooling ourselves - we are not His people!

Abandoned By God?

By abandoning God's purpose for our life - we also abandon His help and provision. He will not lead us along any other path than the one He has pre-destined or pre-ordained for us in the womb. So if we reject God's way for us, there is little left for hope.

Greater Power

No instrument or tool accomplishes its purpose without a greater power. This is a fundamental truth of life. Consider the tools we have and use in our homes or businesses. Without a greater power to operate or at least direct them, they are useless. And so it goes with mankind. Without the direction of the higher power (God), we are useless to accomplish anything. It seems simple enough. Why then do so many of us operate as if we are ignorant of this truth?

God Cleanses

God's moral perfection, when properly seen by man, purifies us from sin, cleanses our mind of our problems - by eliminating their influence on us, and then enables us to worship Him with pure hearts and serve Him with all our being. Until we can grasp that perfect dimension of God though, the transformation will not be so radical, nor so complete.

God's Power in Us

When we recognize how great our God is, how sinful we are --- and the extent of God's forgiveness, we receive power to do His work and accomplish great things in His name. Conversely, if we don't recognize God's greatness or know intimately our own spiritual poverty, we can do little for God and His power seems to escape us.

Paying Back Evil

We are, as Christians, obligated to pay back good for evil. But until we respond to this challenge, we will not know how much we need God's help in order to forgive others. Most of us think of forgiveness as something we can do on our own. But when forgiveness is needed most, that's when it is most impossible - and when God's assistance to achieve it is most necessary. Ironically, forgiveness is needed most in the face of evil.

Praising God

If God did absolutely nothing for me, He would still be worthy of my highest praise. How well do I know that? Could I explain why that is a true statement?

Answered Prayer

Who will get the credit? Who (or what) will be glorified ... if God answers my prayer the way that I've given it to Him? Is my purpose (existing for the benefit of the Lord) being fufilled in my prayer life?

Useful Troubles

Our troubles can be helpful because they humble us. They wean us from the allure of the world and all that it offers. Troubles drive us to our knees and back to God. They vitalize our prayer life. They allow us to experience God's faithfulness in tangible ways. Our troubles make us more dependent on God and make us more compassionate toward others in their troubles.

Who knew that troubles could be so virtuous!

Pleasing God

A sincere desire to please God will result in an alignment of your desires with God's You will love what God loves and hate what God hates. Truly desiring to serve God brings about the nature of Christ in one's character.

Perspectives & Pride

Our perspectives (on anything) can be distorted by our pride. It could be pride in our accomplishments. It could even be pride in our perspectives! Indeed, pride could be considered to be a lens through which we see everything else. It is a lens that will distort everything else.

Fearing God

Fear is a paradigm shift in God's world. The Bible tells us repeatedly, "Do not fear." But then it also tells us that fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. True fear of God will lead to a fearless life. To fear God then really means to revere, respect and stand in awe of Him. When we do that, or rather when we can accomplish that, we trust Him and find that all other fears subside.

God's Blessings

God offers many blessings to Christ followers. But most of them - if not all of them - require our active participation. We must do our part. In order to "appropriate" God's blessings, we must seek Him, cry out to Him, trust Him, fear Him, revere Him, seek peace, be broken, serve Him, refrain from lying, turn towards good, desire righteousness, value Him, turn from evil, resist temptation, do good, etc. Without these things --- God's blessings are always just out of our reach!

Super Powers

The truly powerful nation is not the one with the military might, or the one with all the wealth. No, the truly powerful nation is the one that relies on God's strength and remains corporately submitted to Him. Why then does the world pay so much attention to wealth and military power?

Excellent Leaders

Excellent leaders are confident in God's strength, courageous in the face of opposition - and teachable. They seek to know God's will, listen well and move swiftly when they know they have God's instructions. Strong leaders are led by God. In fact, what makes them strong leaders is their submission and surrender to God as their leader!