August | 2017 | Craig T. Owens

August 2017
S	M	T	W	T	F	S
	1	2	3	4	5
6	7	8	9	10	11	12
13	14	15	16	17	18	19
20	21	22	23	24	25	26
27	28	29	30	31

“What Is Meant By Following Jesus?”

August 14, 2017 — Craig T. Owens

Charles Sheldon wrote an eye-opening, heart-challenging book in 1896 entitled In His Steps. From this book came the well-known phrase “What would Jesus do?”

In this book, Pastor Henry Maxwell challenges his congregation to ask this question regarding everything they do throughout their day. One skeptical man asked this pointed question: what is meant by following Jesus?

“I’ve tramped through this city for three days trying to find a job; and in all that time I’ve not had a word of sympathy or comfort except from your minister here, who said he was sorry for me and hoped I would find a job somewhere.

“Of course, I understand you can’t all go out of your way to hunt up jobs for other people like me. I’m not asking you to; but what is meant by following Jesus? Do you mean that you are suffering and denying yourselves and trying to save lost, suffering humanity just as I understand Jesus did? What do you mean by it?

“I see the ragged edge of things a good deal. My wife died four months ago. I’m glad she is out of trouble. My little girl is staying with a printer’s family until I find a job. Somehow I get puzzled when I see so many Christians living in luxury and remember how my wife died in a tenement in New York City, gasping for air and asking God to take the little girl too. Of course I don’t expect you people can prevent everyone from dying of starvation, lack of proper nourishment, and tenement air, but what does following Jesus mean? A member of a church was the owner of the tenement where my wife died, and I have wondered if following Jesus all the way was true in his case.

“It seems to me there’s an awful lot of trouble in the world that somehow wouldn’t exist if all the people who sing your songs went and lived them out. I suppose I don’t understand. But what would Jesus do? It seems to me sometimes as if the people in the big churches have good clothes and nice houses to live in, and money to spend for luxuries, while the people outside the churches, thousands of them, I mean, die in tenements, and walk the streets for jobs, and grow up in misery and drunkenness and sin.”

So for you, what does it mean if you say you are following Jesus?

Posted in Uncategorized. Tags: Charles Sheldon, Christian, Jesus Christ, quote, WWJD. Leave a Comment »

The Q Series—The Bible

August 14, 2017 — Craig T. Owens

Our annual Q Series is where folks send their questions to me on a variety of subjects and we do our best to answer them. This week many of the questions were about the Bible. Questions like:

What books should be included in the Bible?
What about Bible translations?
Is it okay for the Bible to have pictures in it?

Here’s what we discussed, along with the time this discussion appears on the video:

How was it decided what books would be included in the New Testament? [5:38] **Be sure to check out this post: How We Got The Bible on Biblegateway.
J. Warner Wallace’s list of criteria for New Testament books [9:45]
Did contemporary sources support or refute the New Testament authors? [11:45]
How did the final 27 books of the New Testament make the list? [15:02]
How was it decided what books would be included in the Old Testament? [18:22]
Evidence presented by the Apostle Paul [20:31]
How do we know the Scriptures were accurately transcribed? [22:50] **Be sure to check out this post: Why Trust The Bible? on Biblegateway.
The history surrounding the complete Latin Bible and the Dead Sea Scrolls [23:45]
What are Bible translations and paraphrases (with references to the Wycliffe Bible and the discovery of the Rosetta Stone)? [25:45]
Some cautions about Bible paraphrases [33:23]
Is it okay for a Bible to have pictures in it? [35:16]
Are icons of the Cross acceptable or a blasphemy? [37:42]
How can someone better understand the Bible when they read it for themselves? [41:32]
Why ask questions? [48:39]

We’ll be discussing more questions this upcoming Sunday, so be sure to send them my way. For all of the ways you can send questions, please click here.

9 More Quotes From “Marching Off The Map”

August 12, 2017 — Craig T. Owens

Tim Elmore’s insights on the youth culture are amazing. To synthesize such great insights he obviously needs to read lots and lots of research. In all of his books, Dr. Elmore freely shares the cream-of-the-crop quotes he’s uncovered in his research. Here are a few of those quotes which I appreciated.

“In the modern world we have invented ways of speeding up invention, and people’s lives change so fast that a person is born into one kind of world, grows up in another, and by the time his children are growing up, lives in still a different world.” —Margaret Mead

“We are morphing so fast that our ability to invent new things outpaces the rate we can civilize them.” —Kevin Kelly

“I beseech you to treasure up in your hearts these my parting words: Be ashamed to die until you have won some victory for humanity.” —Horace Mann

“The greatest gifts we can give our children are the roots of responsibility and the wings of independence.” —Denis Waitley

“Strangely, the world seems to be growing both more charitable and more selfish at the same time. I have a lot of faith that our children’s generation has the potential to rise to the unimaginable challenges that lie ahead. But at this fascinating crossroads in human history there’s also a sense that a traditional worldview and ethic will come under increasing assault in the western world.” —Chris Arias

“[Generation Z] are the most connected, educated and sophisticated generation in history. They don’t just represent the future, they are creating it.” —Mark McCrindle

“In every society since the start of history, whenever you broke down any population this way, you’d always get a pyramid. But from 1960-2060, our pyramid will turn into a rectangle. We’ll have almost as many Americans over age 85 as under age 5. This is the result of longer lifespans and lower birthrates. It’s uncharted territory, not just for us, but for all of humanity. And while it’s certainly good news over the long haul for the sustainability of the earth resources, it will create political and economic stress in the short-term, as smaller cohorts of working age adults will be hard-pressed to finance the retirements of larger cohorts of older ones.” —Paul Taylor, Pew Research Center

“We are now at a point where we must educate our children in what no one knew yesterday, and prepare our schools for what no one knows yet.” —Margaret Mead

“The military tells us we must offer diversity training, but it seems to me what our sailors most need is unity training. How can we mesh our differences into a single unit and get results?” —Navy Captain Michael Abrashoff

Check out my review of Marching Off The Map by clicking here. And read some of Tim Elmore’s quotes which I shared here. I will be sharing more quotes from this book soon, so stay tuned!

Posted in Uncategorized. Tags: book review, demographics, Dr. Tim Elmore, education, Generation Z, history, invention, population, quotes, responsibility, school, students, technology, training, youth. 2 Comments »

A.W. Tozer On Reading Well

August 10, 2017 — Craig T. Owens

“To confine our reading to the works of a few favorite authors of today or last week is to restrict our horizons and to pinch our souls dangerously.” …

“To think without a proper amount of good reading is to limit our thinking to our own tiny plot of ground. The crop cannot be large. …

“Extensive reading without the discipline of practical observation will lead to bookishness and artificiality. Reading and observing without a great deal of meditating will fill the mind with learned lumber that will always remain alien to us. Knowledge to be our own must be digested by thinking.” …

“The best book is not one that informs merely, but one that stirs the reader up to inform himself. The best writer is not one that goes with us through the world of ideas like a friendly guide who walks beside us through the forest pointing out to us a hundred natural wonders we had not noticed before.” —A.W. Tozer, in Man—The Dwelling Place Of God

Posted in Uncategorized. Tags: A.W. Tozer, books, quotes, reading. 2 Comments »

Thursdays With Oswald—Fiery Furnace

August 10, 2017 — Craig T. Owens

This is a weekly series with things I’m reading and pondering from Oswald Chambers. You can read the original seed thought here, or type “Thursdays With Oswald” in the search box to read more entries.

Fiery Furnace

Faith means, whether I am visibly delivered or not, I will stick to my belief that God is love. There are some things only learned in a fiery furnace.

From Run Today’s Race

Run Today’s Race contains short statements from Oswald Chambers intended to stimulate Christians to ponder things like:

Do I only believe it because I can see it, or can I trust God even without seeing the reason for my trial?
Am I fully convinced of God’s unlimited love for me?
Have I learned lessons from my fiery trials in the past?
How can I help other brothers and sisters who may be in a fiery trial now?

Posted in Uncategorized. Tags: Christian, difficulties, God's love, learning, Oswald Chambers, trials, trust. Leave a Comment »

15 Quotes From “Run Today’s Race”

August 9, 2017 — Craig T. Owens

Oswald Chambers mastered the art of stimulating deep thinking and introspection with just a few short statements. Run Today’s Race is designed to be read each day for a full year. Trust me, the short seed thoughts you read each morning will keep you thinking all day long. Check out my full book review by clicking here.

“It is a great moment when we realize we have the power to trample on certain moods, a tremendous emancipation to get rid of every kind of self-consciousness and heed only one thing: the relationship between God and myself.”

“It is easy to turn our religious life into a cathedral for beautiful memories, but there are feet to be washed, hard flints to be walked over, people to be fed. Very few of us go there, but that is the way the Son of God went.”

“Prayer with most of us is turned into pious platitude, it is a matter of emotion, mystical communion with God. It is no use praying unless we are living as children of God. Then Jesus says—‘Every one that asketh receiveth.’”

“There is only one purpose for your life, and that is the satisfaction of the Lord Jesus Christ.”

“If there is the tiniest grudge in your mind against any one, from that second, your spiritual penetration into the knowledge of God stops.”

“We have judged our fellow men as sinners. If God should judge us like that we would be in hell. God judges us through the marvelous Atonement of Jesus Christ.”

“God delights to put me in a place where He can make me wealthy. ‘Follow Me, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven.’”

“The more complicated the actual conditions are, the more delightfully joyful it is to see God open up His way through.”

“When we try to reserve our strength it works out in weariness. Spend to the hilt all we have got and God’s recreating power is greater than all the expended power.”

“My personal life may be crowded with small, petty incidents altogether unnoticeable and mean [commonplace], but if I obey Jesus Christ in the haphazard circumstances, they become pinholes through which I see the face of God and when I stand and face to face with God I shall discover that through my obedience thousands were blessed.”

“Whenever the insistence is on the point that God answers prayer, we are off the track. The meaning of prayer is that we get hold of God, not of the answer.”

“One of the most amazing revelations of God comes when we learn that it is in the commonplace things that the Deity of Jesus Christ is realized.”

“As long as there is a human being who does not know Jesus Christ, I am his debtor until he does. The mainspring of [the Apostle] Paul’s service is not love for men but love for Jesus Christ.”

“As long as the devil can keep us terrified of thinking, he will always limit the work of God in our souls.”

“By prayer and Bible reading and meditation, the drab life (drab externally) has glorious holiday hours with God in which the soul is restored even in the valley of deep darkness.”

More quotes coming soon, so stay tuned.

Posted in Uncategorized. Tags: atonement, Bible study, blessing, book review, emotions, forgiveness, God's strength, Heaven, Jesus Christ, judgement, Oswald Chambers, power, prayer, purpose, questions, quotes, relationships, thought life, treasure. 2 Comments »

Godly Leaders Can Inspire Everyone To Pursue One Vision

August 8, 2017 — Craig T. Owens

And I told them of the hand of my God which had been good upon me, and also all of the king’s words that he had spoken to me. So they said, “Let us rise up and build.” Then they set their hands to this good work. (Nehemiah 2:18)

The mark of a godly leader is one who can inspire all sorts of people to pursue the same vision.

Nehemiah did such a good job casting the vision God had given him that people from all professions and persuasions immediately joined in. Although the vision was to rebuild the walls around Jerusalem, most of those who joined Nehemiah in pursuing this vision were anything but builders. They were…

Priests
Fathers and their sons
Fathers and their daughters
Natural-born Israelites
God-fearing foreigners
Goldsmiths
Perfume makers
Leaders
Laypeople
Those living within the city
Those who lived outside the city
Merchants

With one voice they cried out, “Let’s rise up and build!” and they got down to business.

All these different people buying-in to one godly leader’s vision!

This is Part 5 in my series on godly leadership. To read my other posts, please click here.

Posted in Uncategorized. Tags: Artaxerxes, Bible study, leadership, Nehemiah, servant-leadership, vision, vision casting. 5 Comments »

Run Today’s Race (book review)

August 8, 2017 — Craig T. Owens

It’s amazing the thoughts you can think if only the right “seed thought” is first planted in your mind. In Run Today’s Race that’s exactly what Oswald Chambers does for us.

Run Today’s Race is a 365-day seed-planting book designed to send your mind exploring the applications of each day’s short statement or question. At most, each day’s reading is expressed in three sentences, but many of them are expressed in just a handful of words.

The original publication in 1918 was called Seed Thoughts Calendar. In the introduction we read:

“Oswald Chambers firmly believed in the concept of ‘seed thoughts’—brief, pithy sayings designed to arrest attention and stimulate thinking. The entry for December 9 perhaps best expresses his conviction on how to affect a person’s mind and behavior: ‘Our Lord was never impatient. He simply planted seed thoughts in the disciples’ minds and surrounded them with the atmosphere of His own life….’”

Each day’s entry in Run Today’s Race will take you only a few seconds to read, but you will have some excellent thought material to keep your mind occupied all day long. Make an investment in your spiritual growth by picking up a copy of this excellent book.

As an example from November 14:

“The proof that we are rightly related to God is that we do our best whether we feel inspired or not.”

This might stimulate questions like:

Do I do my best only when someone is watching me, or do I do my best because God is always watching me?
Do my work ethic and pursuit of excellence make God look good to others?
Do I have to wait until I’m “inspired” to do my best, or can simply doing my best make me feel inspired?

Posted in Uncategorized. Tags: book review, Christian, introspection, lifelong learner, Oswald Chambers, questions, thought life, thoughts. 6 Comments »

One-And-Done? Ongoing? Later?

August 7, 2017 — Craig T. Owens

If I were to ask five different Christians to give me a definition of sanctification, I just might get five different definitions!

Part of this comes from incorrect either-or thinking. However, Jesus seems to tell us that sanctification requires a both-and thinking.

In Christ’s prayer for His followers in John 17, He uses the word sanctified three times (see verses 17-19). Although He is using the same Greek word each time, He uses a different “flavor” of the word to make it really clear what He means.

First of all, the Greek word for sanctified means the process of being made into a saint. So sometimes I like to say the word this way: SAINT-ified.

Check out Christ’s prayer. First He says, “I sanctify Myself,” and then He says, “that they too may be truly sanctified.” Same Greek word, but each time is slightly tweaked.

Jesus uses a “flavor” of Greek which means sanctification is something that He has done completely and totally on His own once and for all. In other words, Christians are completely and totally sanctified at the very moment they surrender their life to Him.

But when He talks about His followers, the “flavor” of Greek means sanctification is something that is an ongoing process. In other words, we are being SAINT-ified.

So which is it? Sanctified once, or sanctified through an ongoing process?

It’s not either-or. It’s both-and!

Think about a married couple. From the moment the pastor says, “I now pronounce you husband and wife” they are married. It is done; fully completed. There is nothing the bride or groom can do to become more married.

However, the groom can begin to look at the marriage through his bride’s eyes. Then he can serve her in a way that helps her feel more joy, more satisfaction, and more fulfillment within the marriage. Neither of them becomes more married, but they can get more enjoyment within the marriage.

The same thing for Christians. At the moment we ask Jesus to be our Lord and Savior we are saved from the penalty of our sins. We can’t be more saved. But through the process of SANIT-ificiation we can experience more joy, more satisfaction, and more fulfillment within our relationship with Jesus.

My paraphrase of 1 Peter 1:15-16—But just as He who called you has paid for your once-for-all saint-ification, so keep on being saint-ified in all you do; for it is written: “Be holy, because I am holy.”

What about you? Are you satisfied with just being saved, or are you striving for a joy-filled, more fulfilling, increasingly satisfied relationship with Jesus Christ? It can truly be a wonderful both-and relationship!