A quick show of hands: how many of you like a phony? Uh-huh, I didn’t think I’d see any hands raised on that one. We may like to see our favorite actor/actress play a convincing role on stage or on screen, but when it comes to real people we interact with on a daily basis, we want the real deal.
Sadly, the people who have the most “realness” to offer often go about it in a phony way. I’ve observed way too many people who claim to be followers of Christ put their masks on:
They put on their laughing mask when their coworkers are telling crude jokes. Then switch to their disgusted mask when they tell their church friends how vulgar their coworkers are.
They put on their silent mask when someone talks about how they don’t really believe in God. Then they switch to their wise counselor mask when they tell someone else what they should have said.
They put on their fake smile mask when someone asks what they think of the boss’s announcement about possible layoffs. Then they put on their pray-for-me mask when they ask someone in church to intercede for them about their future.
Since God has so generously let us in on what He is doing, we’re not about to throw up our hands and walk off the job just because we run into occasional hard times. We refuse to wear masks and play games. We don’t maneuver and manipulate behind the scenes. And we don’t twist God’s Word to suit ourselves. Rather, we keep everything we do and say out in the open, the whole truth on display, so that those who want to can see and judge for themselves in the presence of God.
Be real. Always. In all circumstances. Masks are for parties. Realness is for people’s souls.
What I love about this story is the contrast between Jonathan and his father Saul. King Saul was enjoying life as the king, hanging out with his friends, sitting under a pomegranate tree, far away from his enemies. Life was good for Saul, life was familiar and risk-free. Saul was living in his comfort zone.
But the comfort zone is a lousy place to stay. In the comfort zone you only tell stories, but never live an adventure. In the comfort zone, you only hear about what God has done for others. But Jonathan wasn’t willing to stay in this comfort zone.
Jonathan stepped out into The UnZone. He went into unfamiliar territory, with an unusual battle strategy, and uncertain results. Jonathan said, “Perhaps God will help us.” But he didn’t stop there. Jonathan quickly added, “I don’t know how, but I know God can come through.”
After Jonathan stepped out of his comfort zone into The UnZone, God not only gave him a victory but encouraged the entire Israelite army. This never would have happened if Jonathan had stayed in his comfort zone.
In The UnZone you don’t just tell stories, you live adventures.
In The UnZone you don’t just hear about God’s power, you experience it firsthand.
I challenged our youth group last night to step out of their comfort zones and into The UnZone. How cool it was to see all of the uncomfortable, unfamiliar, uncertain, unusual things they wrote down on their UnZone cards and tacked up on our bulletin board. I’m looking forward to seeing our bulletin board covered with these cards over the next few weeks.
What about you? What comfort zone is God calling you out of? What UnZone do you need to step into? The Apostle Paul said, “When I am weak then I am strong.” In other words, “When I step into my UnZone, I step into God’s Strength Zone.”
The UnZone is a great place to live, so step out today.
When was the last time you thought something new for the first time? Atheist Bertrand Russell said something painful, but true, “Most men would rather die than think. Many do.”
I’ve written before about the most important and most lengthy conversation all of us have every day. It’s the conversation we have with ourselves—it’s called thinking. But for many people, their thinking is stuck in a rut.
I’ve often had conversations with people bucking against a new thought where I have asked them why they believe what they believe. Far too many times they tell me, “That’s just the way I was raised.” Okay, but what do you think about it? “I don’t know. That’s just the way I was raised.”
Two books that have really helped my thinking are As A Man Thinketh (James Allen) and Thinking For A Change (John Maxwell). Allen uses the analogy of our minds as gardens where we need to constantly pull out the weeds and plant the thoughts that will bear the fruit we desire. Maxwell challenges us to look differently at the way we think our thoughts.
The Apostle Paul tells us to take captive every thought and make it obedient to Christ (2 Corinthians 10:5). And then we can begin to change the way we think: Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise (Philippians 4:8).
“Rarely do we find men who willingly engage in hard solid thinking. There is an almost universal quest for easy answers and half-baked solutions. Nothing pains some people more than having to think.” —Martin Luther King, Jr.
If your thinking is ever going to go to a higher level it has to start with this: You have to be willing to think about what you’re thinking about.
In other words, why are you thinking what you’re thinking? Start capturing the thoughts running through your mind and ask them, “Why are you here?” Are you thinking what you’re thinking because you thought it, or because someone else thought it for you?
It is only by capturing the thoughts that are already in your head that you can sort out the healthy thoughts from the unhealthy thoughts.
Have you ever seen the 1970s game show Let’s Make A Deal? Contestants were given some tricky choices to make. They usually held something in their hand that was fairly valuable and were given the opportunity to trade what they could see for what they couldn’t see.
The anxiety about making this decision almost caused some people to have a nervous breakdown on the spot! And, oh, the emotional highs and lows when the contestants discovered what they won or lost!
I was reading about a let’s-make-a-deal moment in the Bible. Jerusalem is facing an imminent threat from an incredibly powerful man (2 Kings 18-19). Sennacherib sent this message to King Hezekiah, “Let’s make a deal” (18:23).
And he made a pretty compelling argument to take the deal. Sennacherib said, “No one who has ever stood up to me has survived before. I’m undefeated. I have a bigger, meaner army than you; more horses and chariots than you; and I’ve blocked your attempts to call on someone else to come rescue you. There’s no way out of this. C’mon, let’s make a deal!”
What makes a deal like this so appealing is that it’s all visible. It’s hard to say “no” to what you can see and say “yes” to what you can’t see.
Hezekiah knew God could deliver them, but would He deliver them? Hezekiah couldn’t see God, but he could see all of Sennacherib’s forces. What to do, what to do??
Hezekiah made the right deal. He put his trust in God! Although He was unseen, Hezekiah believed that God’s deal was better than Sennacherib’s deal. And Hezekiah was not disappointed in the deal he made (19:35-37).
What about you? Are you facing insurmountable odds today? Do you feel like you need to make a deal? Is what you can see more compelling than what you can’t see? I can promise you that any deal that you might make that doesn’t throw your trust entirely on God is a bad deal. A very bad deal!
So we’re not giving up. How could we! Even though on the outside it often looks like things are falling apart on us, on the inside, where God is making new life, not a day goes by without His unfolding grace. These hard times are small potatoes compared to the coming good times, the lavish celebration prepared for us. There’s far more here than meets the eye. The things we see now are here today, gone tomorrow. But the things we can’t see now will last forever. (2 Corinthians 4:16-18, The Message)
Don’t give up! Don’t make a bad deal! Trust God. His way is always the best deal!
Listen to the podcast of this post by clicking on the player below, and you can also subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or Audible.
I sort of remember the days of full-service gas stations. My Dad would drive in and say, “Fill ’er up!” and the gas station attendant would jump into action. Filling up the gas tank, cleaning the windshield, checking the oil level, and even checking the air pressure in the tires.
But, alas, those days of full service seem to be long gone, replaced by highly-efficient, less-personal self-serve stations. And I’m not necessarily talking just about gasoline stations either.
All of our lives seem to have become more efficient and less personal. We are a more do-it-yourself, leverage-technology kind of society today. And I wonder if the result is that many people aren’t getting filled up like they used to.
There is a well-known Bible story in 2 Kings 4. A widow is facing what would amount to foreclosure today. Except this foreclosure was on her sons. Her husband, a God-fearing man, had died and left her with debts she could not pay. The practice in that society was for her sons to be “sold” to pay off the debts. These boys would have to work all day long for someone else, and whatever money they would have earned for their labors would go to the creditors.
In her desperation, the widow turned to the prophet Elisha. He asked her if she had anything of value in her house, and she replied, “Just a little oil. But not enough to pay off my debts.” The counsel Elisha gave her is applicable for our self-serve society today—
Elisha said, “Go around and ask all your neighbors for empty jars. Don’t ask for just a few” (v. 3).
Elisha asked the woman and her family to humble themselves—ask all your neighbors. Sometimes this is one of our biggest hindrances: pride which keeps us from admitting we have a need. And this was no small task because she had to ask ALL her neighbors to, “Fill ’er up!”
Elisha asked them to be persistent—don’t ask for just a few. Not just a jar here and there, but ask for every available jar to, “Fill ’er up!”
The principles in this story shouldn’t just apply to times of desperation in our lives. Because maybe if we worked on being around our neighbors and asking what needs they have, and sharing our needs as well, maybe we wouldn’t get into such desperate situations.
In the story in 2 Kings, the oil stopped flowing only after every available jar had been filled. If I want God to continue to pour His oil of blessing into my life, He has to have room in which to pour. That means that I need to be pouring into others’ lives as often as I can. Listen to the blessings when we, “Fill ’er up!”—
I want you to know how delighted I am to have Stephanas, Fortunatus, and Achaicus here with me. They partially make up for your absence! They’ve refreshed me by keeping me in touch with you. (1 Corinthians 16:17-18, The Message paraphrase)
In addition to our own encouragement, we were especially delighted to see how happy Titus was, because his spirit has been refreshed by all of you. (2 Corinthians 7:13)
God bless Onesiphorus and his family! Many’s the time I’ve been refreshed in that house. And he wasn’t embarrassed a bit that I was in jail. The first thing he did when he got to Rome was look me up. May God on the Last Day treat him as well as he treated me. (2 Timothy 1:16-18, The Message paraphrase)
Your love has given me much joy and comfort, my brother, for your kindness has often refreshed the hearts of God’s people. (Philemon 7 NLT)
Get around other “full” people and let them fill you up.
Seek out “empty” people and pour abundantly into them.
The more you pour out into others, the more room there is for God to pour into you.
God is always pleased when our lifestyle is one of “Fill ’er up!”
God once said, “Let the light shine out of the darkness!” This is the same God who made His light shine in our hearts by letting us know the glory of God that is in the face of Christ. —2 Corinthians 4:6 (NCV)
Today I was at the Flint Institute of Arts with my kids. There was a really cool exhibit made of hundreds of pieces of glass that cast a rainbow of colors all over the wall. Yet all of these colors sprayed across the wall are generated by just two lights.
This made me think, “How am I reflecting God’s light? Is my life a prism that accurately transmits God’s light and love to others? Or does my lifestyle make it difficult for people to see God?”
Live clean, innocent lives as children of God, shining like bright lights. —Philippians 2:15 (NLT)
I want people to see the brilliance of God’s love through me.
Craig T. Owens 