Tag: Scripture

10 out of 10 people…

bballsonRecently, my youngest son kept asking me to play him one-on-one in basketball. I finally acquiesced and accepted his offer. Knowing that all dads eventually will be bested by their sons as they grow bigger and faster (while we dads grow older & slower), I determined that this would not be the time that he would be able to beat me.

I did everything I could to beat him: I used my bigger body to get in the paint, I used the traditional “sky-hook (he laughed at me),” I tried my trusty jump shot at the corner of the free-throw which failed me spectacularly. When it came down to it, he is just too good of an outside shooter and I am too out of shape. The result is that he bested me in a game of one-on-one. All of my boys can now beat me at multiple sports!

Continue reading “10 out of 10 people…”

Running: My Enemy, My Friend

“Why in the world am I doing this?”
“I feel pretty good right now!”
“I feel like I am going to die.”
“That was a great run.”
“That was a…well, rather exhausting run.”
“I feel like I could run for miles!”
“I feel like I couldn’t run for another ten feet!”

Anybody that has picked up running as a sport has felt and expressed all of the above statements and more. Growing up, I played nearly every sport imaginable: soccer, basketball, football, floor hockey, tennis, racquetball, hacky-sack (is that a sport?), skiing, snowboarding (a bit), biking, etc. And although many of these sports involve running, some of them quite extensively, running is not the goal. It is one of the many components of that sport.

Continue reading “Running: My Enemy, My Friend”

A Bad Man Takes a Good Turn

Charles Colson recently died and went to heaven. For those of you not familiar with Mr. Colson, he was famous (or infamous) for being a Watergate operative under Richard Nixon, served time in prison for his part in Watergate, and then founded Prison Fellowship shortly after his stint in prison (see recent story published by World Magazine here).

What a great tale of a life that was headed one direction and then turned about-face and headed completely the other direction! It reminds me of a person who is unsaved. He is heading one direction (hell) and then meets Jesus and is born again. He is now saved and heading the other direction (heaven).

The Word of God plainly states that if a person is truly a Christian, their life will change:

Therefore, if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.
2 Corinthians 5:17 

Continue reading “A Bad Man Takes a Good Turn”

His Enemy, His Life

When does one know when you should fight against someone or for  someone? Well, too often, we fight against those whom we should not – our spouses, our children, our parents, our co-workers, fellow church members, and so on.

Under the Old Testament law, God had established what we call the “eye for an eye”  law. In other words, if someone has wronged you, then they deserve the same thing back. And then Jesus Christ (God in the flesh) came and upped the ante. He taught something contrary to what our old nature wants to do. Read below:

Matthew 5:43-44
43 Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour and hate thine enemy.
44 But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you.

What Jesus taught here is what I call “graduate-level” Christianity. Continue reading “His Enemy, His Life”

Spirit, Soul, & Body – part II

In Spirit, Soul, & Body – part 1, we looked at the idea of balance and order.  Balanced lives are what many of us strive for. And although that is the goal many of us have, we don’t even know (or realize) that we are triune beings. That is, we are comprised of spirit, soul, and body (see part 1 in this series). Without that knowledge, we lead imbalanced and far too often, frustrated lives.

Let’s again look at the key verse in the Bible that lays out the triune makeup of mankind:

And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.
I Thessalonians 5:23

Now, remember how I stated at the start of the series how important order is? It is just as important in this verse. God states everything with a purpose and HOW He states it is with a purpose. Spirit…soul…body – this order shows me an order of importance.

Perhaps you are thinking to yourself, “Does that mean my body is not important?” No, that is not what I am saying at all; what I am saying though is that as we strive to be blameless in these areas, we ought to be balanced in the order God has placed emphasis on.

 

Continue reading “Spirit, Soul, & Body – part II”

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