Are We Without Sin?

Jesus returned to the Mount of Olives, but early the next morning he was back again at the Temple. A crowd soon gathered, and he sat down and taught them. As he was speaking, the teachers of religious law and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in the act of adultery. They put her in front of the crowd. “Teacher,” they said to Jesus, “this woman was caught in the act of adultery. The law of Moses says to stone her. What do you say?”
They were trying to trap him into saying something they could use against him, but Jesus stooped down and wrote in the dust with his finger. They kept demanding an answer, so he stood up again and said, “All right, but let the one who has never sinned throw the first stone!” Then he stooped down again and wrote in the dust.
When the accusers heard this, they slipped away one by one, beginning with the oldest, until only Jesus was left in the middle of the crowd with the woman. Then Jesus stood up again and said to the woman, “Where are your accusers? Didn't even one of them condemn you?” “No, Lord,” she said. And Jesus said, “Neither do I. Go and sin no more.” (John 8:1-11)

Sadly, there are countless times I have talked with one who would be considered the adulteress in this story and the church as a whole seems to still have the same attitude the Pharisees did. I myself have judged others based on their actions and this is something I'm still learning not to do. I believe we are not supposed to judge anyone, especially those outside the church. (Matthew 7:1-5) The only time I think it is acceptable is when you are teaching people how to live right in the context of the church. This should be an uplifting and encouraging thing to the one you are teaching and it should be done by those who have been through those struggles and overcome, for I believe that has the most power for change in others. (What I am talking about is what is done at the individual level, not in the context of teaching or preaching.)

Jesus says we will be judged by him with the measure we judge with. That is a scary thought. He taught us not to judge because none of us are without sin, so none of us have that right. Only he does and he taught us for our own benefit because the more we judge others, the more he will judge us.

I believe it is far better for us to look into our own selves and seek to make that right with the Lord, instead of looking outside ourselves to others and trying to make them right. We only have the power to change ourselves, not others, but doing so is shameful isn't it? It is not a fun thing to look at ourselves and realize how messed up we are, but the truth is, if we do not do this, we will never get better. When we decide to do this we realize how desperately we need Christ and we become humble. It is in this humility and seeking of self improvement that we have the most power for change over others.

When we have an attitude of humility in sharing our lives with others, they will be more likely to listen to what we have to say. When others understand where we have been, that we are just as lost without Christ as they are, and they understand that we are sharing from a place of love in looking at our own lives and not pointing out their stuff, they begin to listen. They already know we aren't perfect and that is why many get angry with the church because we pretend that we do have everything together when we really do not.

We need to stop being afraid to face ourselves, therefore, looking to others so as to hide our own insecurities. We should stop ignoring our own stuff and putting others down so we feel better about ourselves. We need to let go of our pride and admit we are still sinners in need of a Saviour every day. We must look to ourselves first, then look to Christ for the desperate help that we need. Only when we first do that will we be effective in helping others improve themselves and we will instead be doing it out of love for them, which is how it should be done.

None of us are without sin, so let us put down our stones.

Encouragement

Today I am going to brag about my wife. It it because of her that I am writing this blog after all. Maribeth has always been a very encouraging person. Whenever I have presented her with ideas she has always heard me out. If they have been good ideas, she has been consistent at encouraging me in them. If they haven't been the best ideas, however, she has been very gentle about telling me so, but was still willing to let me try and was still encouraging nonetheless. Writing is something she has always seen a potential in with me and so she has always been very encouraging about it. In fact, a lot of times I've had her proof read things before submitting them because she also has great input and insight. She has taken what I thought may have just been a whimsical dream and really pushed me into making it a reality. What she has done for me in helping to develop my dreams and myself as a man has been very powerful for me and it's that power, that of encouragement, that I would like to talk about today.

What she has taught me, and what I have observed when practicing encouragement with others, is a great tool to use with others. Not in the sense of manipulating them for your own purposes, but in the pure sense of seeing the potential in others and pushing them to bringing out that potential. Maribeth has always been selfless in her approach and I think that is the key to this whole thing. When you encourage others just for the sake of seeing them become a better self, and not for your own agenda, then you both find the most success and satisfaction. Everyone wins because they became a better self and you helped them get there. Whether you are encouraging a talent your child has that they cannot see yet, or you are helping to motivate a friend to do the right thing, you must never make it about yourself. If you do, then you end up getting frustrated because your own expectations aren't being met and are now actually being harmful to the person you were trying to help.

Another key to their success is consistency. At first a lot of people, like me, will need consistent encouragement because of an ever present lack of confidence. Beth didn't just initially tell me it was a good idea to write, she consistently told me it was good and convinced me. Even to this day when I have my doubts she is quick to turn them around by her encouraging words.

Now if one doesn't find success in what they wanted to pursue that's okay too. It's still good to let them try at least once and because of your encouragement they will still feel like it was worth a shot and they will be more inclined to try their next dream. Some things you may see as an unworthy pursuit, but I think this is where discretion should be used because if it is something they love to do then it may still be worthwhile to them. Even if they do not find success in it and move on to something else, they at least gave it a shot and you were there to cheer them on. Never tell them something was a waste of their time though. That will only serve to discourage them in the next thing that may not be a waste of time. With time they will see whether what they are pursuing is worthwhile or not. That isn't for us to decide for them. No matter what we must continue to be encouraging because eventually they will hit on something they are good at and you will have helped them discover it.

Today, let us try and be encouraging to someone just for the sake of encouraging them. You never know what kind of impact you will have on that person. When you practice it with consistency, ask them if they would appreciate your input, if they haven't told you so already. If they are okay with it, then be encouraging in what you say to give them outside insight into their dreams. If they are not okay with it, then respect that and don't take offense. Just continue to encourage them as they feel it out for themselves.

Thank you to my lovely wife, Maribeth. I love you very much sweetheart. It is because of your encouragement that I am able to have this joy of writing.

The Importance of Being Thankful

Being thankful helps us to reflect on the good in our life, thank those who have helped to create that good, and thank the One who has given us life. A lot of people are doing those thankful things for every day of this month and I think this is a really cool thing to do in order to shift our focus every day from that which may cause us grief to how good our lives really are if we just take the time to reflect on all that is good in our life, past and present. It's amazing the power in taking time to reflect and being thankful can have if you practice it a lot. It humbles you and fills your heart with joy because you realize just how blessed you are, even if it's just little things. You also realize you could have never achieved all of it on your own.

As many of you are aware it is Veterans Day. I would like to take the time to reflect and thank the many who have sacrificed much for our safety and freedom. I have had several family and friends serve in the military and I am so thankful to them for all they have done. Many of you who know my father and have heard him preach have most likely heard about my grandfather, Ken, who served in WWII. My dad always speaks with gratitude and pride towards our grandfather and I have always looked up to him. It's because of him and many like him that we are still free today and safe.

For me it is easy to be thankful today because I know personally the sacrifices that were made through stories from close family and friends. But even if you don't know anyone who has served, it is still important to be thankful to those who have, or are currently serving this country, because what they have done has affected you personally in many ways.

Growing up, if we saw any military personnel while we were out and about, my father always made it a point to thank that person for their service. That made an impact on me and I try to do the same today. For those that are reading this that have served, or are serving; I thank you. What you do, or have done, to keep us safe and free is deeply appreciated and always will be.

Contentment: The Key to Success

Some of you may be thinking by the title of this blog that I am going to speak on prosperity and perhaps that everyone can obtain it with this one simple trick!

Or perhaps you read into it differently, as I intended it, and figured out that it's real topic will be more about being content than finding success.

You see, success is something that changes meaning depending on the perspective you have about it. It can also create a desire in you that will never be fully satisfied. Contentment, however, is the perspective by which, no matter how your life turns out, you can feel successful and accomplished.

What I have observed in my own life, and in the lives of others, is that no matter how hard you try at something you may never succeed at it, especially to a standard you, or others, may have set. I have observed people equally as talented at something as another, yet one finds success and the other does not. I also see too many people become a slave to success and that brings misery. I was in that boat myself not too long ago. I had big dreams, but with them came the fear of never living up to those dreams. Don't get me wrong here, dreaming big is a wonderful thing to do and I still have those dreams. Where it becomes an issue is when you allow those dreams to determine everything you do and through the process refuse to be joyful until said dreams are obtained. Or you allow fear into your heart and you choose to never pursue those dreams in the first place.

The reality is your dreams may never be obtained as you perceive them. If you can come to terms with that then the process will be so much easier. The process to obtaining your goals will become something you enjoy and in the end you will look back with a full heart because of how you came to be there versus an emptiness from getting there no matter the cost and refusing to be satisfied until there.

Let us dream and aspire to fulfill those dreams, but let us also hold them loosely and choose to be okay if we never get there in the way we envisioned. One can still enjoy writing, per se, while never finding a large audience. One, also, can play music for the love of playing music, even if that music doesn't inspire many.

We must do what we love and pursue it to the best of our ability. We should always seek to be excellent in whatever we pursue, but let us not have the end sacrifice the means. Allow the means, the process, every day life be what we find fulfillment in, then we will feel successful all the time because we let the little things bring us joy and satisfaction. We may even reach our goals and that's great! But if we don't then that is great too because we had a wonderful adventure of it.

The Weight of Perfection

Then Jesus said, “Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you. Let me teach you, because I am humble and gentle at heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy to bear, and the burden I give you is light.” 
Matthew 11:28-30 

This passage, though comforting in it's words, always eluded me when it came to understanding and applying it to my own life. To come to Christ in prayer was easy, but to find rest proved difficult. His yoke felt burdensome and the more I was taught through his Word the more of a burden it seemed to be.

Recently, while pondering this dilemma, I discovered that the problem didn't lie in the act of applying this Scripture to my life, but in my attitude about how I approached life in general. I had taken on to myself the burden that Christ already bore for me. I let myself get caught up in 'buying God's grace with good works'. Though a faith in Jesus should produce good works, if you are living as his disciple and striving to carry out His will for your life, those good works are not how we earn His approval. This is a lesson that I am still learning.

Perfection will only ever be accomplished by one man and that man was Jesus. We cannot earn His love or grace. We cannot earn our way to heaven. We need to humbly accept that only through Christ do we receive any of these things. If we were to even try our best to please God, compared to Christ, it would only be considered as filthy rags (See Isaiah 64:6 and Romans 3).

Instead, let us abide in the fact that the due price was paid and that we can neither add nor take away from that. Though we still feel we are not good enough, let us rest in peace knowing God loves us anyway and He always will no matter how imperfect we may be. He loves us so much that He lifted the burden of shame from our hearts and replaced it with our Comforter, the Holy Spirit. He gave us His only Son who invaded our world wrought with sin and dominated by Satan, bore our sin, then died and rose again to return to us and bring us home to Him someday.

That is why we can come to Him and find rest. He already carried the weight of perfection for us. All we need to do now is learn from Jesus; the way He lived and taught and also the way He, through the Holy Spirit and the Word, continues to guide and teach us.

May we also strive to be humble and gentle at heart. There is no pride in the fact that no matter how good we are, it would not be good enough. That's humbling. Let us stay humble and grateful knowing Christ already made it right.

Was It Worth It?

Whenever I go swimming I get this teeth gritting, head pounding, excruciating pain in my ears that impulsively makes me want to upchuck. I Googled what could be the problem because it also happens when I am out in the cold too long and thought that it could be that the water was too cold. Turns out I was right. The blood vessels in my ears constrict and my damaged ear drums cry out for mercy. I've learned to work my way in to the pool and wear ear plugs now. That's the funny thing about pain, it makes you look for solutions to never experience it again.

Some of you may know that I was in a band at one point. I also listen to loud music. My parents always warned me to turn down the headphones because they could hear what I was listening to from the other room. I should have listened to them. I also should have worn ear plugs more often to band practice. Because I didn't I am a little hard at hearing and I experience pain in my ears when a normal human shouldn't. The irony is I still listen to my music loudly with the windows down in my car. Old habits die hard as they say.

Was it worth it? Those many times I could have just listened to my music quieter and wore those ear plugs. Was it really so much an inconvenience at the time to warrant the damage I carry with me now?

I am trying to ask myself that on the daily now when faced with many different decisions. If I compromise now to make things easier or more suited to my fancy, will I regret it later? Usually the answer is yes.

Common sense is never something one should compromise on. There are reasons for rules and regulations; they are there to keep you from harm and to allow you to live a higher quality life. As I learned the hard way, compromise may suit you in the moment, but it will handicap you in the long run. Now I need to have things loud to hear it or pester people by asking them to repeat things several times or speak up.

I can't go back and change my decisions, but I can learn from them. I must choose to let mistakes lie in the past where they happened and I must also choose to learn from them.

Was it worth it? No. Or even, will this be worth it? If no, don't do it.

Do question what you do and make the right decision, even if it takes time or is difficult. Stick to your convictions and listen to wise counsel. Do not compromise. It'll save you unnecessary pain in the long run.

Twilight - An Acrostic Poem

Tinges of green and blue,

With stars above and moon.

Igniting the night sky,

Leaving darkness behind

Is the sun and it’s rays

Getting ready for the day.

Hues of orange and red appear

To bring forth hope and dissolve fear.

Morning Fog - My First Poem

Morning Fog,

Both breathtaking and intriguing,

Descends down the mountainside

To nestle within the valley,

Giving illusion to being alive.

Some men feel trapped within

For their sight becomes hindered.

Others find relief due to the veil

Which envelops them amid daylight,

Hiding them from prying eyes.

Those mortals who fear to fly

Love fog, which gives opportunity

To be among the clouds without

Having to ever leave the ground.

Soon the fog will dissipate

Due to noonday sun,

But one only need to wait ‘til morn

To see it’s tendrils descend again.

Me Against Me Against Me

I don't know about you, but my biggest enemy/hindrance in life is myself. When I've messed up, most have been quick to forgive, except myself. I never hold grudges, unless it's against myself. I hold myself to a standard that can never truly be attained for an extended period of time and it frustrates me to no end.

I made a realization recently that I am going to couple with a concept I have been chewing on for a while. It has to do with grace, grace for oneself. 

If all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23), and if love is to cover a multitude of sins (1 Peter 4:8), and if we are to love others as we love ourselves (Mark 12:31, Matthew 22:39; Jesus is talking about the two greatest commandments in which all other commandments are fulfilled. The first of these is to love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength. The second is what we are talking about here.), then why is grace towards oneself so hard to grasp and put into practice?

How can we love others as deeply as we are made to if we cannot first learn to love ourselves? This isn't a selfish love I am talking about, for selfishness is a shallow self love that isn't truly love for oneself. Selfishness leads to mistakes which bring more pain and shame into the mix of everything and pushes others farther away. No, this love is something much deeper.

We need to learn to forgive and forget, not just towards others, but towards ourselves. I'd argue that it's more important to learn this towards yourself because if you can't first learn that to some degree, then it won't be as easy to love others the way we are supposed to. We are called to love our neighbor as our self, but if we cannot love our self then where will that leave us? Sure we can learn to forgive others quickly, but loving them may prove difficult if you are wallowing in guilt and self hate.

One of the hardest things to do is to love those who hate you. It's easy to love those who love you, but almost impossible to return kindness and love to those who mistreat you. But what if it's yourself you hate or mistreat by constantly being hard on yourself and withholding forgiveness from yourself?

I have been studying Luke lately and there is a passage that talks about what I just mentioned above. (Luke 6:27-36) It ends the passage with a command for us to be merciful as our Father is merciful to us.

Mercy is a difficult concept for it is something you give unwarranted. But by Jesus coming to earth to die, therefore paying the penalty for our shortfalls, the Father showed the greatest of mercies, for apart from Christ we can never attain perfection. This is a fact and when I refuse to show mercy to myself because of mistakes I make that I am predisposed to making (Romans 7:14-25), then I, in turn, refuse to accept the greatest of mercies that God gifted to me.

Do not get me wrong here, this is not something to be flippant about. (See Romans 6) Yes, Christ's sacrifice covers all our sin from birth to death, but this does not mean we make light of the sin that we do, nor should we keep on living as who we were before Christ. For just as He died and rose to life, so we too are dead to sin and alive anew in Christ. His example and love should lead us to repentance, a turning away from and death to our sin, and a striving for purity as Christ was pure. (1 John 3:3)

When we mess up, however, we must learn to forgive ourselves or we will never progress as believers. We will never be able to fully love as we were made to love in Christ Jesus. When we refuse to offer grace to ourselves, we deny the grace God extended through Christ Jesus that covers our multitude of sins. This must not be so.

Though it is a hard lesson to learn I have been trying to put it into practice and I encourage you to as well. To be able to wake up to a new day and say to yourself that God's mercies are new today (Lamentations 3:22-23), no matter what yesterday was like, and make the decision to extend yourself those mercies as well means to lift a huge weight of shame over a past you cannot change. Every day is a new slate, a chance to be that new creation in Christ Jesus instead of "the old self". (2 Corinthians 5:17)

Every day is a battle, but Christ never said it'd be easy. (Luke 9:23, Matthew 16:24) The battle is, and will be, very much worth it. You will have more joy and a peace that surpasses understanding when you try your best, while at the same time keep in mind you are still human and susceptible to sin. And due to that, choose also to extend to yourself grace. For that is why Christ came, because we could have never been good enough on our own so He showed us grace by standing in our place so that we could someday stand without fault before our Father in heaven.

There Will Never Be Another Chance To Live Today For...

God?

Who, or what, consumes your thoughts, then therefore, your actions every day? Day to day can be different, I know, but there is always something or someone that consumes your thoughts throughout the day.

Busy-ness is the enemy of intimacy.

I am guilty of this almost every day. It's truly hard to keep your mind focused on what truly matters in life. For me I try to make the effort to spend time with the Lord in reading and studying his Word and also praying throughout the day, but it's a difficult thing to do. I have always had some trouble with discipline and to keep ones priorities straight is a battle as well. It is very important, however, to make that time.

I have discovered that my day goes smoother, is more filled with joy and peace, and it's easier to love others when my focus is on serving God and others before myself every day. (Phil. 2:3-4) It's quite the paradox actually. Serve others to be fulfilled. Most of the time we see fulfillment coming only from being served or serving ourselves. The paradox works though!

Dying to our selfishness is so hard. Everything and everyone else says to pursue what makes you happy, but that just does not work. Looking to make others happy is where true happiness comes from. This is also where good, deep relationships are born and fostered. When both parties are looking out for each other, each person is fulfilled.

God looks out for us in more ways than we can fathom. If all Jesus ever did for us was take what we rightfully deserved, death, and brought it upon himself as the spotless lamb, that would be enough to seek to serve him the rest of our days. He did that and so much more and still he continues to bless others, even those who curse him.

Why is it then that we don't always seek his will every day? Just like relationships between people, our relationship with God can only get more intimate when we choose to serve him and put his will above our own every day. Stop worrying about yourself, or what others may think of you. You will be taken care of and your relationship with others and with the Almighty will be more genuine in the long run.

Do what is right every day, even when it's hard. Humble yourself before men and God will exalt you. Love others and you will be loved.

Will you live for God and others today, every day, with me?