There’s a line in 1 Timothy that really caught my attention: “Train yourself to be godly” (1 Timothy 4:7). Why is this so great? Because of the word “train”. Paul doesn’t say, “suddenly know”, or “don’t work too hard at it”, or “it will come naturally”. No! He says “Train yourself”.
If you’ve ever trained in [...]
Archive for the ‘God’ Category
training for God
Posted in Bible, God, faith on January 11, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
when we screw up
Posted in Bible, God, taking action, tagged failure, God, mistakes, Proverbs on January 9, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
I had lunch with a friend the other day, and as we often do our conversation shifted towards God. As we talked, I began to describe some of the things happening with R3 and what personal challenges I needed to be working on next. That’s when she said something to me that didn’t fully register [...]
working at faith
Posted in God, faith on January 7, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
I am beginning to realize that faith involves a lot of work. I used to think that becoming a Christian was the hard part, that once I worked through my doubts it would be smooth sailing. But it’s not. And in some ways it’s harder.
When I first became a Christian there was the excitement of [...]
is excellence bad?
Posted in God, taking action on January 2, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Sometimes it seems that we Christians are afraid of embracing excellence. As if somehow doing amazing things, and doing them well, was something God wanted us to avoid. Now it’s possible striving for excellece can get you in trouble. For instance, a pursuit of excellence, for the sake of excellence, is a bad idea. It [...]
the meaning of Christmas
Posted in God, Jesus, hope on December 24, 2007 | Leave a Comment »
I find Christmas to be a fascinating holiday. Not because I like to get a lot of presents. Although I do! Instead, I think it’s interesting watching how people get so caught up in all the things that there are to do before Christmas Day. I’m sure we can all think of examples of that [...]
hope
Posted in God, faith, hope on December 12, 2007 | Leave a Comment »
Life can be tough. I don’t think I’m surprising anyone with that little bit of insight. It can be easy to give up. Some tasks seem so daunting, so overwhelming, that we can’t imagine finishing them, let alone surviving them. “How do we keep moving forward against those odds?” we ask ourselves. I admit, it’s [...]
active praise
Posted in Bible, David, God, choice, faith on December 10, 2007 | Leave a Comment »
Some days it’s just hard to be excited about God. We wake up and it’s raining outside, or we’re feeling depressed or overwhelmed, or we’re facing a major tragedy. Or worse yet, our fantasy football team just got crushed for yet another week. In fact there are far too many days that I find it [...]
what i’m watching?: The Golden Compass
Posted in God, feeding my brain, sharing faith on December 7, 2007 | Leave a Comment »
The Golden Compass is set to hit theaters this weekend to much fanfare. And it’s not just Hollywood Hype that’s driving this movie’s appeal. If you follow the news at all you’ve probably heard that many Christian groups are encouraging people to avoid this movie. In a way that’s understandable. You see, the whole point [...]
intentionality: choosing God
Posted in God, Jesus, choice, different, taking action on November 19, 2007 | 1 Comment »
Why doesn’t God force us to believe in him? We are created to need God, so why not just go one step further and be created to always believe in God? But that’s not what God did. Instead he’s given us this thing called free will, which lets us make our own decisions. Don’t you [...]
