All posts by 5Q

When You Don’t Feel Loving

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“Let love be your highest goal.”1

As none of us is perfect, most of us have an issue of one kind or another. Probably my biggest issue was being afraid to love, which came from childhood hurts. A friend recently asked me if I ever still feel afraid to love and I said not very often but sometimes I do. “What do you do when you feel this way?” he asked to which I replied, “I do the loving thing.”

Nobody feels loving all the time, but we can always do the loving thing if we so choose. People who choose otherwise usually end up driving love away. I’ve seen this happen and I’m sure you have too.

Jesus never told us how we should or shouldn’t feel … he just told us how to act. Sure, it is important to recognize and acknowledge our feelings. Not to do so is to be in denial. However, it is equally important not to allow our feelings to control us. That can be childish and immature. But rather, we need to be in control of our feelings and regardless of what we feel, always do the right thing, the loving thing. This is a mark of maturity.

Suggested prayer: “Dear God, no matter what situation I am in nor how I feel, please help me to be like Jesus and always do the loving thing—even if this includes tough love where such is needed. Thank you for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully, in Jesus’ name, amen.”

1. 1 Corinthians 14:1 (NLT).

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Failure Is an Event—Not a Person

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“Have mercy on me, O God, according to your unfailing love; according to your great compassion blot out my transgressions. Wash away all my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin.”1

Richard Halverson in Pulpit Helps asked the question: “Who hasn’t failed? The Apostle Paul failed, Peter failed, every one of the twelve apostles failed. David, Israel’s greatest king, ‘a man after God’s own heart,’ failed. Moses, giant among the Israelites, giver of the law, deliverer of his people, failed. Jacob, father of Israel, failed. Isaac, son of promise, failed. Abraham, progenitor of Israel, father of the faithful, prototype of those who are righteous through faith, failed. Even our first parents, in their human perfection, failed. Who hasn’t failed?

“It is not failing that is the problem; it is what one does after he has failed. To take failure as final is to be a failure. To see in failure the school of [God's] Spirit is to let failure contribute to one’s growth in Christ.”

When we fail, the important thing is to get up, confess it to God and, where necessary, to the person whom we have hurt if we have hurt someone, and ask for their forgiveness. Then we need to forgive ourselves as God forgives us, and learn from the experience.

Remember, too, it’s not God’s goal to make us good but to make us whole, and the more whole and mature we become, the less we will act out in destructive ways—and the less we will fail. The only real failure, after we either fall or get knocked down, is to not get up one more time.

Suggested prayer: “Dear God, please forgive me for where I have failed (be specific) and help me learn and grow through this experience so I won’t make the same mistake again. Thank you for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully in Jesus name.”

1. Psalm 51:1-2 (NIV).

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Believing One’s Own Lies

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“Therefore, dear friends, since you already know this, be on your guard so that you may not be carried away by the error of lawless men and fall from your secure position. But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be glory both now and forever! Amen.”1

Politicians, promoters, and radicals all know that if you keep repeating the “product or line” you are wanting to promote—even when it is blatantly false—if you say it often enough, loud enough, intense enough, and for long enough, not only do you end up believing your own lies, but lots of gullible people believe them too. It becomes a case of: “Don’t confuse me with the facts. My mind is made up!”

The bottom line is that many people see what they want to see, hear what they want to hear, and believe what they want to believe—what is the most convenient for them—and with some fancy “footwork” manufacture a story in a vain attempt to justify their stance. And the more defensive they become when challenged, the more evident it becomes that they are promoting or believing a lie. Shakespeare said it well: “Me thinks he doth protest too much.”

Just think how we’ve been sold a bill of goods on free sex (which is never free), accepting homosexuality as a norm (which is opposed to the norm), gay marriage (an oxymoron if ever there were one), abortion on demand … line upon line, little by little, all of these issues have been accepted by vast numbers because they have been promoted over and over and over ad infinitum.

Let us remember that repetition does not guarantee reality. And the greatest defense we have against lies is to know what the Bible teaches and be grounded therein—and to always be honest with ourselves and with others.

Suggested prayer: “Dear God, please give me a genuine love for and appreciation of your Word so that it becomes a solid foundation for my life to guard against all the lies that we are being bombarded with daily from advertisers, high-pressure salesmen, politicians, Hollywood, radicals from both the extreme left and extreme right, and all who promote anything that is opposed to your Word. Thank you for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully, in Jesus’ name, amen.”

1. 1 Peter 3:17-18 (NIV).

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Soldier of the Cross

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“Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’ The King will reply, ‘I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.’”1

Dan Vellinga talks about a true soldier of the cross, Martin of Tours. “He was a Roman soldier and a Christian. One cold winter day, as he was entering a city, a beggar stopped him and asked for alms. Martin had no money; but the beggar was blue and shivering with cold and Martin gave what he had. He took off his soldier’s coat, worn and frayed as it was; he cut it in two and gave half of it to the beggar man. That night he had a dream. In it he saw the heavenly places and all the angels and Jesus in the midst of them; and Jesus was wearing half of a Roman soldier’s cloak. One of the angels said to him, ‘Master, why are you wearing that battered old cloak? Who gave it to you?’ And Jesus answered softly, ‘My servant Martin gave it to me.’”2

Reminder: “Only one life, ’twill soon be past. Only what’s done for Christ will last.”

Suggested prayer: “Dear God, please help me to remember that whenever I give even a cup of cold water in your name, I am giving it as unto you. Please help me to always be a true giver and never a half-giver. Thank you for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully, in Jesus’ name, amen.”

1. Matthew 25:37-40 (NIV).

2. Dan Vellinga, “What Would You Do?”

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The Opposite of Love

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“No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.”1

I once asked a class I was teaching, “What would you say was the Christian’s number one sin?” to which a jokester replied, “Apathy, but who cares?” And as the old saying goes, “Many a true word spoken in jest.”

“In the book The Screwtape Letters, by C. S. Lewis, a devil briefs his demon nephew, Wormwood, in a series of letters on the subtleties and techniques of tempting people. In his writings, the devil says that the objective is not to make people wicked but to make them indifferent. This higher devil cautions Wormwood that he must keep the patient comfortable at all costs. If he should start thinking about anything of importance, encourage him to think about his luncheon plans and not to worry so much because it could cause indigestion. And then the devil gives this instruction to his nephew: ‘I, the devil, will always see to it that there are bad people. Your job, my dear Wormwood, is to provide me with people who do not care.’”2

The opposite of love is not hate. It’s apathy or indifference that is practiced by people who don’t care enough to care. The fact is that “people don’t care what we know until they know how much we care.”

Suggested prayer: “Dear God, please give me a loving heart so that I will truly care about others and care enough to share the love of Jesus in some way with all those you bring into my life. Thank you for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully, in Jesus’ name, amen.”

1. John 4:12 (NIV).

2. From http://www.sermonillustrations.com quoted by Dan Vellinga, “What Would You Do?” (sermon).

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Overcoming the Curse of Perfectionism

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“Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”1

When the Bible tells us to be perfect, it has nothing to do with being a “perfectionist.” In fact, the word for perfect in today’s scripture verse means to be complete, whole and/or mature.

Sadly, perfectionists or those who have perfectionistic tendencies find it difficult, if not impossible, to forgive themselves when they have done wrong even though God and others have forgiven them. And no matter what they do, regardless of how good it is, they can still be left unsatisfied because, to them, it isn’t absolutely perfect. They can be difficult to live with because what you do may not be good or perfect enough either.

Being made whole and complete are not characteristics of perfectionism, but of maturity—both spiritual and emotional—and are essential for wholesome relationships. Being perfectionistic is a sign of immaturity where an individual has a poor self-concept. Perfectionists have totally unrealistic expectations in that they feel they have to be perfect in everything they do in order to feel acceptable to themselves—a hopeless situation in which to be. When they have done wrong, the reason they can’t forgive themselves is because in their mind they weren’t being perfect. The fact is that we are all a part of this broken world in which we live and will never find perfection until we get to heaven. Overcoming perfectionism is learning to accept one’s self as God accepts us—warts and all—and learning to be satisfied when we know that we have done the best we can while accepting the fact that we are imperfect beings.

For further help I suggest that you read the article, “Developing a Healthy Self-Concept” at: http://tinyurl.com/self-concept007. And for those who have a severely poor self-concept, I would encourage you to see a fine professional Christian counselor who can help you to overcome this problem.

Suggested prayer: “Dear God, thank you that you love and accept me as I am. Please help me to do the same and become whole so I can love and accept myself and others in a healthy sense. When and if needed, please lead me to the help I need to develop a healthy self-concept and therein bring glory to your name. Thank you for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully, in Jesus’ name, amen.”

1. Matthew 5:48 (NIV).

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The Shepherd’s Voice

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“My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.”1

I read about a shepherd from the Scottish highlands who, whenever he went out to take care of his sheep, would take his young daughter with him. The thing she enjoyed most of all was hearing her father call the sheep who always came to him. As the years passed she became a beautiful young woman and went to live in one of Scotland’s great cities—Edinburg or Glasgow—to make a life of her own. At first she wrote home to her parents every week, but in time her letters dropped off and soon she stopped writing.

Rumors filtered back that somehow she became involved with some unsavory characters. On one occasion when one of the boys from her hometown ran into her by accident, she totally ignored him. When her father heard this, he went to the city to look for her.

For days on end he looked for her. He looked in the slums, rows of houses, markets, taverns, and everywhere in between to no avail. After all of this searching he became very discouraged with the thought that he had lost his daughter to the evil city.

When leaving to return home, he remembered how his daughter always loved to hear the voice of the shepherd calling out to the sheep. “So he turned around and on this quest motivated by his sorrow and his love, he began to stalk the streets. His voice rang out the shepherds call. The citizens of the city all looked at him as if he had lost his wits. It wasn’t too long as he walked the streets of one of the degraded neighborhoods that inside one of those houses, his daughter sitting among the vermin who had led her astray heard his voice. With great astonishment on her face, she heard that call of the voice of the shepherd, the voice of her father calling out to her. She leaped up and rushed out to the street and ran into the arms of that old shepherd, her father. It was then that he took her back home to the highlands of Scotland and brought her back to God and to decency and modesty.”2

I wonder if any of our readers today can identify with this farm girl in that you have wandered away from God. If so, I urge you to stand still long enough to examine your life and listen with your heart to the call of Jesus, God’s Shepherd Son, who is lovingly calling you to return home to him and again follow in his way.

Suggested prayer: “Dear God, please help me to slow down, stop, and listen so that I will hear your shepherd call to me whatever that may be. If I have wandered away from you, I choose to come back to you today. If there is sin in my life, I confess it and ask for your forgiveness and for strength to overcome. No matter what, I choose to always follow you, the Good Shepherd, and rededicate my life afresh to you. I also ask that you will help me always to be ‘as Jesus’ in some way to every life with whom I have contact. So help me God. Thank you for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully in Jesus’ name, amen.”

NOTE: If you are renewing your commitment to Jesus Christ today, please let us know by filling in the brief form at: https://learning.actsweb.org/decision.php, and we will send you the web address for additional helpful articles—all without charge. Be assured that we have a strict privacy policy and will never share any of your information with anyone ever.

FURTHERMORE: If you have never received Jesus, the Good Shepherd, as your Lord and Savior and asked God for his forgiveness for all your sins, please read “How to Be Sure You’re a Real Christian” at: www.actsweb.org/christian.

1. John 10:27 (NKJV).

2. Adapted from a sermon by Philip Harrelson, “The Voice of the Shepherd.” Cited on SermonCentral.

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Good News: I’m Fired

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“And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.”1

In light of the passing of Steve Jobs last year, we are reminded how, in his commencement address to Stanford’s 2005 graduating class Steven Jobs, founder of Apple Computer, shared how he and his friend, Woz, started Apple in his garage and within ten years it grew to a $2 billion company. He also shared how he was fired from his own organization and in his words, “I didn’t see it then, but getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.

“During the next five years, I started a company named NeXT, and another company named Pixar. Pixar went on to create the world’s first computer animated feature film, Toy Story, and is now the most successful animation studio in the world. In a remarkable turn of events, Apple bought NeXT, I returned to Apple, and the technology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple’s current renaissance.”2

Not to the same degree by any means, but in a similar way this is how ACTS was started. At the time I was the South Australian director of a well-known youth organization. I changed our approach to ministry by commencing direct mail evangelism and included reaching adults as well as teenagers. I was told by the powers that be that my ministry didn’t fit the required role and was asked to either give up my ministry, stay with the current methods (which weren’t working that great anyhow), or get out of the organization. I chose the latter. It, too, was the best thing that happened to me at the time—as frightening as it was. Like you, I’ve been through other seeming crises, too, which have all turned out far better than I could have ever dreamed or hoped for.

So, if it seems like your world is crumbling around you and your life is truly committed to God and his will for your life, choose to trust your life to him, and, in time, you too will discover that all things do work together for good for “those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.”

Suggested prayer: “Dear God, thank you for every crisis in my life that you have made to work for good, and turned into a blessing beyond my wildest dreams. Thank you for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully, in Jesus’ name, amen.”

1. Romans 8:28 (NIV).

2. www.snopes.com/glurge/stevejobs.asp

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Creative Questioning

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“But the people of Berea were more open minded than those in Thessalonica, and gladly listened to the message. They searched the Scriptures day by day to check up on Paul and Silas’ statements to see if they were really so.”1

Albert Einstein, who discovered the theory of relativity, asked, “What would a light wave look like to someone keeping pace with it?”

Bill Bowerman, inventor of Nike shoes, questioned, “What happens if I pour rubber into my waffle iron?”

Fred Smith, founder of Federal Express, reasoned, “Why can’t there be reliable overnight mail service?”

Godfrey Hounsfield, inventor of the CAT scanner, asked, “Why can’t we see in three dimensions what is inside a human body without cutting it open?”

And Masaru Ibuka, honorary chairman of the Sony Corporation who came up with the idea for the Sony Walkman, queried, “Why don’t we remove the recording function and speaker and put headphones in the recorder?”

Asking the right questions is one of the fundamental keys for opening the mind to new ideas, some of which have made profound changes for mankind. However, whenever people come up with new ideas, they need courage to overcome the criticisms of negative people who seem to feel that their calling in life is to discourage creative thinkers and productive change.

For instance, shoe makers called Nike’s idea for waffle shoes stupid. Godfrey Hounsfield’s CAT scan idea was seen as “impractical.” Masaru Ibuka was asked if he was crazy when he proposed the idea for the Sony walkman and Fred Smith wrote a paper at Yale suggesting the idea for Federal Express—and got a “C” grade!

We, too, like the Christians in Berea, need to question doctrines we are taught to make sure they are biblical and not just outmoded traditions of man that can “kill” the church, and be constantly open to and actively seeking better ways of doing things for improving the quality of life for ourselves and others. And, most of all, we need to be open to what God is doing, or wanting to do, in our own life, in our church, in our community, and in our nation—and get in on his plans.

Suggested prayer: “Dear God, help me not to accept everything I hear, but to test it to see if it is true. And help me to be open to change where change is needed and where I need to change, and help me to be a change agent for you. Thank you for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully, in Jesus’ name, amen.”

1. Acts 17:11 (TLB)(NLT).

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The Tyranny of the Urgent

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“There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven: a time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to uproot, a time to kill and a time to heal … to tear down … to build … to weep … to laugh … to mourn … to dance … to scatter …. to gather … to embrace … to refrain … to search … to give up … to keep … to throw away … to tear … to mend … to be silent … to speak … to love … to hate [and] a time for war and a time for peace.”1

At least in our Western culture many, if not most of us, seem to feel that there is never enough time to do all that we want to do. I can certainly identify with that.

In a research project, Ipsos, a global marketing research firm, announced that 64 percent of Americans were most likely to agree with the statement, “There is never enough time in the day to get done what I want to get done.” And it’s not only Americans who feel this way. It’s just the same in my homeland of Australia.

Gordon Govier, a journalist working with Intervarsity Christian Fellowship wrote, “When Charles Hummel wrote his classic essay ‘Tyranny of the Urgent,’ in 1967, he identified the telephone as among the worst offenders against our peace and complacency. And that was before we carried the offending instrument with us everywhere and embellished it with email, computers, cameras, downloadable ring tones and music files.

“The issue,” Hummel said, “is not so much a shortage of time as a problem of priorities.” Or, as a cotton mill manager once told him, “Your greatest danger is letting the urgent things crowd out the important.”2

How true this is.

Like Jesus we, too, in the midst of our busy schedules, also need to come apart and rest awhile—before we come apart.

Suggested prayer: “Dear God, help me to realize that there is a time to do the things I need to do today. Help me to keep my priorities straight, put first things first, and do what I need to do and let the rest go. Thank you for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully, in Jesus’ name, amen.”

1. Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 (NIV).

2. Gordon Govier, “Handling the Tyranny of the Urgent,” Assist News Service, http://tinyurl.com/b3usy.

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