All posts by 5Q

Excuses, Excuses, Excuses

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“When all was ready, he sent his servant around to notify the guests that it was time for them to come. But they all began making excuses. One said he had just bought a field and wanted to inspect it, so he asked to be excused. Another said he had just bought five pair of oxen and wanted to try them out”1

“Douglas Bernstein, a psychology professor at the University of Illinois, recently asked faculty members for the ‘most unusual, bizarre and amazing student excuses’ they had ever heard. He got dozens.” Following are a few:

“An old favorite, but one professor’s class established some sort of record when 14 out of 250 students reported their grandmothers’ deaths just before final exams. In another class a student reported that he could not take the mid-term because his grandmother had died. When the instructor expressed condolences a week later, the student replied, ‘Oh, don’t worry. She was terminal, but she’s feeling much better now.’

“I had an accident, the police impounded the car, and my paper is in the glove compartment.”

“I can’t be at the exam because my cat is having kittens, and I’m her coach.”

“I need to take the final early because the husband of the woman I’m seeing is threatening to kill me.”2

Excuses go all the way back to Adam and Eve who said when they blew it, “The devil made me do it.” Yeah. Right!

Sir Walter Scott put it realistically when he wrote, “Oh, what tangled webs we weave / When first we practice to deceive.”

Of one thing we can be sure. God sees all and knows all. We can never deceive him. There will be no excuses when we stand before him on our final examination day, “As it is appointed for men to die once, but after this the judgment.”3 To make sure you are prepared for your final exam be sure to read, “How to Be Sure You’re a Real Christian” online at: http://tinyurl.com/real-christian.

Suggested prayer: “Dear God, please deliver me from the self-deception of excuses. Help me always to tell the truth and accept responsibility for my foul-ups. And above all, help me to admit and confess to you all my failures and sins and seek your forgiveness. Thank you for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully, in Jesus’ name, amen.”

1. Luke 14:17-19 (NLT).

2. Dynamic Illustrations, Mar/Apr 1995. Cited in a sermon by Rev. Dr. David E. Leininger.

3. Hebrews 9:27 (NKJV).

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Things That Bug Us

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“Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.”1

As the ditty goes, “It’s the little things that bother us and put us on the rack, you can sit upon a mountain but you can’t sit on a tack.”

And isn’t that the truth? It’s the little annoyances in life that get us tied in a knot. A slight criticism, a driver who cuts us off on the freeway, a green light that turns red before we get to it, a friend running late, and so on.

Let us realize, however, that somebody’s negative reaction may have more to do with them than us. A criticism may be somebody projecting their unresolved issues onto us. Somebody failing to thank us may indicate that they are having a “bad hair” day, and somebody cutting us off on the freeway may be an indication of their impatience—as well as a reflection of ours!

What somebody else does to me may or may not be a problem. How I react, though, is always my issue, and when I overreact, that is always my problem. What the other person does is their issue. How I act, react, or overreact is always my issue and my responsibility.

If we’d remember that “whatever others think of me is none of my business,” I would at least learn to cope much better with many of life’s little annoyances. I know it’s easier said than done, but it is a goal to work towards. Furthermore, the more mature and whole I become, the less life’s little annoyances will bother me. I’m still working on this issue.

Suggested prayer: “Dear God, as it is your purpose for me, please help me to grow through the circumstances of life that ‘push my hot buttons’ and so become more and more like Jesus in every way. Thank you for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully, in Jesus’ name, amen.”

1. Philippians 4:6-7 (NKJV).

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Self-Fulfilling Prophecies

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“What I feared has come upon me; what I dreaded has happened to me.”1

If I fear that I will get sick, dwell on it, and believe it, chances are more than likely that I will get sick. If I fear that I am going to be rejected and believe it, I will act in such a way to set myself up to be rejected and, like Job, the thing I fear will happen to me.

If because of a fear of failure, criticism, of not being perfect, and so on, I never step outside my comfort zone and take risks to achieve what God envisioned for me to do, I will never discover what I could achieve with my life.

Personally speaking, if I feel strongly about a project and sense God is leading me to do this, I would rather try, put it to the test, and even fail rather than through fear of failure never step out to follow my God-given life purpose and dream. I appreciate the words of the unknown poet who wrote:

I would rather stumble a thousand times

Attempting to reach a goal,

Than to sit in a crowd

In my weather-proof shroud

A shriveled and self-satisfied soul.

I would rather be doing and daring

All of my error filled days,

Than watching, and waiting, and dying

Smug in my perfect ways.

I would rather wonder and blunder,

Stumbling blindly ahead,

Than for safety’s sake

Lest I make a mistake

Be sure, be safe, be dead.

As I suggested to a friend recently, let your decisions about what to do be based on love for serving God and others, and never on your fears.

Suggested prayer: “Dear God, I admit my fears and I bring them all to you. Grant that all of my decisions will be based on direction from and love for serving you, and never on my fears. Thank you for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully, in Jesus’ name, amen.”

1. Job 3:25 (NIV).

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Hello, Lord

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“Pray without ceasing.”1

Ivor Bailey prayed: “I enjoy talking to you every night, Lord. I tell you what’s on my mind—the things that bug me, the people I meet, the challenges I face, questions I can’t answer.

“Because you’re my friend, I don’t feel I have to dress up or use out-dated language. I can relax with you.

“Isn’t that what prayer is all about, Lord? You and I sharing things we think are important. Thank you, Lord.”

Besides the Lord’s Prayer this is another excellent way to approach prayer—just share with God what’s on your heart, what’s on your mind, what you are feeling, your joys, sorrows, and so on.

Sharing feelings is what intimacy, communication and connection are all about—not only with people, but also with God. We can do this not only at night but anytime, anywhere.

Suggested prayer: “Dear God, help me to be open, honest, and real with you. You desire truth in the innermost being. Help me to share my inner truth with you—the good, the bad, the indifferent—share it all, God, no matter what. Thank you for hearing, accepting all my feelings, and answering my prayer. Gratefully, in Jesus’ name, amen.”

1. 1 Thessalonians 5:17.

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Well Done

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“His master replied, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master’s happiness!’”1

Theodore Roosevelt said, “It’s not the critic who counts, not the one who points out how the strong man stumbled or where the doer of good deeds could have done better.

“The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena: Whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again…

“Who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, and spends himself in a worthy cause…

“Who, at best, knows the triumph of high achievement…

“And who, at worst, if he fails at least fails while daring greatly so his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.”

Every one of us has been given at least one talent; many have been given several. Regardless of whether we have one or many talents, what is important is to use well what God has given and entrusted to us and therewith give life our best shot.

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

Suggested prayer: “Dear God, grant that I will so live today that when I stand before you face to face, I will hear your welcoming words, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant. Enter into the joy of your Lord.’ Thank you for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully, in Jesus’ name, amen.”

1. Matthew 25:21 (NIV).

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Taking Risks

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“The one who calls you is faithful and he will do it.”1

How true it is, as someone (with tongue-in-cheek) said, “Blessed be he who aimeth at nothing for he shall surely hit it!” Or as another said, “Better to aim at the clouds and hit the tree tops than to aim at the tree tops and hit the ground.”

To have meaningful goals in life is to risk failure. Not to have any goals may keep one feeling safe and comfortable, but it is to guarantee failure. “Equally comfortable,” writes Peter Wagner, “is to define your goals in terms of what you happen to be doing at any given time. If you shoot first, then draw the target around the bullet hole, you’ll never miss the bull’s eye. If someone looks later, he might even call you a good marksman.” Then you can brag about your accomplishments!

But this is not success. It is allowing life to shape you rather than you shaping your life and deciding how you want to invest it.

True success is to discover what God’s purpose for your life is and then give life everything you’ve got to achieve that purpose.

Whatever that is, it’s not failure that is a crime, but to have such a low aim that there is no chance of failure. Or, as somebody else put it, “Not to have a goal is more to be feared than not reaching it.” If you tried and did your best, even if you failed to achieve all of your goal, you are already a success. All God requires is that we do our best.

Remember, however, if your goals are in harmony with God’s purpose for you, he has already equipped you with the wherewithal to be able to achieve them. It’s up to us to get well trained and learn how to effectively use these abilities. So, don’t waste your life. Invest it in a worthwhile God-given life purpose—a noble cause into which you can put your best efforts and be excited about it.

Suggested prayer: “Dear God, please give me the desire to find and the insight to discover my God-given life purpose and goals and, with your help, the courage and determination to pursue and reach them, and do so for your glory. May they always be in harmony with your will and be a part of what you are doing in the world today. Thank you for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully, in Jesus’ name, amen.”

1. 1 Thessalonians 5:24 (NIV).

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Don’t Be a Part of the Living Dead

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“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.”1

Frank Lloyd Wright, the world-famous architect, tells how a lecture he received at the age of nine helped set his philosophy of life. An uncle, a stolid, no-nonsense type, had taken him for a long walk across a snow-covered field. At the far side, his uncle told him to look back at their two sets of tracks. “See, my boy,” he said, “how your footprints go aimlessly back and forth from those trees, to the cattle, back to the fence then over there where you were throwing sticks? But notice how my path comes straight across, directly to my goal. You should never forget this lesson!” “And I never did,” Wright said. “I determined right then not to miss most things in life as my uncle had.”2

To experience the wonders of life we need to be in touch with all of our God-given emotions—including the emotion of wonder. “Life without emotions,” said one humorist, “would be like playing a trombone with a stuck slide,” which of course would be dreadfully monotonous and boring. The same is true when one’s emotion of wonder is repressed, the effects of which are to be characteristically bored with life.

Emotions are God-given. They are a vital part of living a life with vitality, joy and wonderment. So learn to enjoy the emotion of wonder. Learn to let your hair down more often. Have fun. Hang loose. Go with the flow. Plant a tree. Write a poem. Draw with your non-dominant hand. Tell your spouse and kids how much you love them … tell them now and tell them often. Get out of your ruts. Do something different. Stretch your imagination. Step out of your comfort zone.

As Robert Frost said in his poem, “Road Less Traveled,” “I shall be telling this with a sigh / Somewhere ages and ages hence / Two roads diverged in a wood / And I took the one less traveled by / And that has made all the difference.”

And by the way, being in touch with all of your God-given emotions and using them as God intended is a vital part of being whole and living the abundant life Jesus spoke about. It’s also being authentic. Repressed people are a part of the living dead.

Suggested prayer: “Dear God, please help me to be in touch with all of my God-given emotions and use them as you intended. Help me to be authentic and free, and an open channel through whom your love can freely flow. Thank you for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully, in Jesus’ name, amen.”

1. Galatians 5:22-23 (NIV).

2. Gary Swanson, “Living in a Powder Keg,” Focus on the Family, Sept. 1992, p. 14.

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The Scorpion and the Frog

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“Can the Ethiopian change his skin or the leopard its spots? Neither can you do good who are accustomed to doing evil.”1

You’ve no doubt read the old fable about the scorpion and the frog. It illustrates how man’s nature is much more devious and controlling than is his logic.

The fable says how, “One day a scorpion arrived at the bank of a river he wanted to cross, but there was no bridge. He asked a frog that was sitting nearby if he would take him across the river on his back. The frog refused and said, ‘I will not, because you will sting me.’

“The scorpion replied, ‘It would be foolish for me to sting you because then we would both drown.’

“The frog saw the logic in the scorpion’s words, and agreed to carry the scorpion across. But when they were halfway across the river the scorpion stung the frog. The stunned frog asked, ‘Why did you sting me? Now we will both die!’

“The scorpion replied, ‘Because I’m a scorpion … and that’s what scorpions do.’”

Have you ever noticed that God is not concerned about being “politically correct?” Sad to say some people today are more concerned about being “politically correct” than they are about being “biblically correct.” They change the name of sins to justify people’s sinful behavior. They do this because they are more concerned about the approval of man than they are about the approval of God. To God, sin—all sin—is sin by whatever name we call it, and all sin is ultimately self-destructive regardless of how we seek to justify it.

Furthermore, God’s Word reminds us that no matter how good, how noble, how educated, how refined, or how sophisticated we may be, we are all sinners.2 Like the leopard that cannot change its spots neither can we change our nature. We are not sinners because we sin, but rather, we sin because we are sinners. That’s our nature and that’s why we need God’s salvation to save us from the eternal consequences of our sin—which is eternal separation from God for all eternity in the place the Bible calls hell.

Suggested prayer: “Dear God, thank you for providing a way of escape from the eternal consequences of my sinful nature in that you gave your Son, Jesus, to die on the cross in my place to pay the punishment for all my sins. Help me to be certain that I am a true Christian, and that I have received your gift of forgiveness and eternal life. And dear Jesus, because you died for me, please help me to live for you always in all ways. Thank you for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully, in Jesus’ name, amen.”

For help be sure to read the article, “How to Be Sure You’re a Real Christian without having to be religious” online at: http://tinyurl.com/real-christian.

1. Jeremiah 13:23 (NIV).

2. See Romans 3:23.

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A Reminder About Healing

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“Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective.”1

Does God heal people today? Let me answer by first asking another question, “Does God answer prayer today?” My answer is, “Sometimes, ‘yes.’ Sometimes, ‘no.’ Sometimes, ‘wait a while,’ and sometimes, ‘you’re praying the wrong prayer!’” James in the Bible wrote about prayer saying, “You ask and do not receive, because you ask amiss, that you may spend it on your pleasures.”2 In other words, when we don’t get prayer answered, sometimes it is because of false motives or simply that we’re praying amiss; that is, we’re praying the wrong prayer.

The same principle applies to prayer for healing. Sicknesses can have many causes for the simple reason that we live in a sin-sick, broken world. And, as it rains “on the just and on the unjust alike,”3 sickness also “rains” on the just as well as the unjust.

However, we can avoid many sicknesses by living a wholesome life, resolving impaired relationships, putting wrongs right, avoiding stress, and resolving super-charged repressed negative emotions such as guilt, hurt, anger, hostility, jealousy, irrational fears, and other sins of the spirit. This is why the Bible, God’s Word, makes it clear that before we even pray for healing, we need to confess all sins to God (and, at least, to one safe person)—including the sins of the spirit—in order to clear the way for healing.

In my many years of being involved in church life from childhood until the present, and having heard a number of “faith healers” in years past, I have never heard one of these preachers even mention James’s instructions regarding the necessity to confess one’s sins to one another before ever praying for healing.

As I have shared before, I grew up in a very dysfunctional family and was taught early in life to bury and deny my negative feelings, but when I realized the fallacy of this teaching, and got in touch with my “super-charged repressed negative emotions,” and confessed them in a growth support group as well as to a counselor, I was healed of several years of miserable hay fever and painful bursitis. In fact, I am physically healthier today than when I was half my age, for which I truly thank God that I followed the biblical principle for healing.

The fact is that some sicknesses (not all by any means) are symptoms of a deeper fault, sin, or unresolved problem. In these situations the prayer for healing needs to be directed not merely towards the symptom, but on the deeper cause (or causes) which need/s to be confessed and resolved to clear the way for healing.

Being honest with one’s self, with God, and with at least one trusted person is the righteous thing to do; and such prayers are truly powerful and effective.1

Suggested prayer: “Dear God, whenever I have any unresolved problems, issues, or sicknesses, please confront me with the truth of any cause in me that might be in any way contributing to or causing the problem I am experiencing; give me the courage to see it, to confess it to a safe person, and the help to resolve it so that I can be healed. Thank you for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully, in Jesus’ name, amen.”

1. James 5:16 (NIV).

2. James 4:3 (NKJV).

3. Matthew 5:45 (NLT).

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Hammer Theology

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“The reason you don’t have what you want is that you don’t ask God for it. And even when you do ask, you don’t get it because your whole motive is wrong—you want only what will give you pleasure.”1

People who provide simplistic solutions to life’s complex problems can leave a trail of hurt people in their path. I heard a so-called “faith healer” tell a woman who had just experienced a major stroke that the reason she wasn’t healed after he prayed for her was because she (and not he) lacked faith. I mean, how cruel can you get?

I attended a lecture on healing attended by some 300 people, all in some form of ministry. At one point during the lecture the speaker asked all those not feeling well to stand. About 50 people stood—including me. The speaker called on the demon of sickness to be “cast out” en masse. He then told all those who had been healed to sit down. All but nine or ten of us sat down. One by one he then “cast out” the demon of sickness and told the individual to sit down if he had been healed. One by one they sat down. Then came my turn! He then “cast” the demon of sickness out of me. Nothing happened. The pressure to conform and lie was incredible. I refused to do so. I told the speaker that I still felt sick and that I thought my upset stomach was because of a new medication I was on, and I sat down. He moved on to the next person. During the following break one attendee thanked me for not yielding to the pressure to conform.

I’ve heard another well-known speaker teach that the answer to personal problems was to be filled with the Holy Spirit, and another that the answer to loneliness was to accept Jesus as your Savior. These may be an answer for some situations but certainly not for all. Some of our problems are physical in nature, including biological problems such as a chemical imbalance in the brain; numerous problems are emotional in nature caused by unresolved negative emotions and/or by impaired relationships; and some by a multiple of different spiritual causes. Problems may be caused by a combination of all three of these areas.

The causes of our problems can be very complex and multiple and to tell a person who has appendicitis that he has a demon or doesn’t have enough faith to be healed is ignorant, insensitive, cruel and possibly even life-threatening—and certainly not Christian or Christ-like.

As psychologist Abraham Maslow said, “If the only tool you have is a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail.” May I suggest you stay clear of hammer theology—it is neither of the truth nor of God.

Suggested prayer: “Dear God, please help me to be sensitive to the needs of others and never give simplistic solutions to life’s complex problems. Help me to understand the nature of human suffering and always seek the truth about the true causes of my own and other’s problem, when called for, and thereby pray accordingly. Thank you for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully, in Jesus’ name, amen.”

1. James 4:2-3 (NLT).

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