God-Oriented & People-Focused

God-oriented & People-focusedYou can spin it around, roll it down the stairs, throw it high in the air, and still it isn’t phased one bit. It doesn’t matter if you’re moving fast or slow, if you’re at high altitudes or in Death Valley, it still works. The needle of the compass always points north.

It can’t help it: it is naturally oriented to the north pole. Whether it’s pitch-black outside, or 40 degrees below zero; whether you feel like north is “north” or not, the needle will always point its way back to north.

Jesus could be cheered by the crowds or jeered by them. People could shout “Hosanna!” or “Crucify Him!” The weather could be calm or stormy, His disciples could be courageous or scared to death, and still Jesus was oriented to His Father.

Every word Jesus said, every action He undertook, every lesson He taught, every prayer He prayed was God-oriented.

But not only that, even as much as people ridiculed Him, snubbed Him, rejected Him, or denied Him, Jesus was still people-focused. After being so cruelly treated, I think I may have turned from some people, or even turned on some people with some not-so-kind words. I may have even begun to withdraw from people. But despite the way people mistreated Him, Jesus remained lovingly people-focused (see 1 Peter 2:21-23).

Jesus us told us that if we stand for Him, we will be mistreated as well (see Luke 21:17 and John 15:20). But He also told us there was a reward for that mistreatment (see Matthew 5:11-12).

When asked what the greatest of all the commandments was, Jesus replied that it was to be God-focused and people-oriented

Jesus replied, “The most important commandment is this: ‘Listen, O Israel! The Lord our God is the one and only Lord. And you must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength.’ The second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ No other commandment is greater than these.” (Mark 12:29-31)

So a good check-up question for us all: How am I doing at being God-oriented and people-focused, no matter what the circumstances are?

UPDATE: I explore the example of how Jesus responded to His critics in a couple of chapters of my book When Sheep Bite.

Counterculture Christian

I’ve been pondering these quotes for the past few days. They describe a view of Christianity that is biblical, but highly countercultural. What do you think?

C.H. Spurgeon“If we obey the Lord, He will compel our adversaries to see that His blessing rests upon us. … It is for saints to lead the way among men by holy influence: they are not to be the tail, to be dragged hither and thither by others. We must not yield to the spirit of the age, but compel the age to do homage to Christ.” —Charles Spurgeon


Tozer“I am Thy servant to do Thy will, and that will is sweeter to me than position or riches or fame and I choose it above all things on earth or in heaven.” —A.W. Tozer


C.S. Lewis at his desk“The symbols under which Heaven is presented to us are (a) a dinner party, (b) a wedding, (c) a city, and (d) a concert. It would be grotesque to suppose that the guests or citizens or members of the choir didn’t know one another. And how can love of one another be commanded in this life if it is to be cut short at death?” —C.S. Lewis

7 Quotes From “Discipleship In Crisis”

Discipleship In CrisisCheck out my review of Discipleship In Crisis by Frank Viola by clicking here. Below are a few quotes which I found especially highlighter worthy.

“The presupposition that sits underneath virtually every sermon heralded today and most of the Christian books that fill bookstores is that we can live the Christian life if we just try hard enough. If we study our Bible more, pray more, witness more, tithe more, hear more sermons… then we can be like Jesus. But that’s not the gospel. The gospel teaches that just as Jesus couldn’t do anything of Himself, we can’t do anything of ourselves. Listen to the Lord again: ‘Without Me you can do nothing.’ The Christian life is impossible. It’s only Him-possible.” 

“The goal of the gospel is not to get you out of hell and into Heaven, but to get God out of Heaven and into you.”

“A person who is living by the tree of life doesn’t sit back and say, ‘Let me try to do good and avoid evil.’ Instead, he allows the life of God to flow with in and through him. He yields to the instincts, promptings, and energy of that God-life. … You see, ‘good’ is a form of life. And only God is good. Here are the two choices before you today: (1) The choice to intellectually know good from evil and to try to do good = the tree of the knowledge of good and evil; (2) Living by the life of God, which is goodness itself = the tree of life.”

“The only way you and I can truly imitate Jesus’ external lifestyle is to imitate His internal relationship with His Father.”

“What history teaches us is that men have never learned anything from it.” —G.W.F. Hegel

“In a word, you cannot raise the bar on discipleship without raising the bar on the ekklesia—the living experience of the body of Christ—the native habitat in which true disciple-making and transformation take place.”

“The New Testament talks about spiritual seeing, spiritual touching, spiritual tasting, spiritual handling, and spiritual healing. These are the faculties of your Spirit-regenerated human spirit. Jesus was very much in touch with His spiritual instincts, and hence, He ‘perceived’ things ‘in His spirit’ that were outside natural means. He did this as a man anointed by the Holy Spirit, not because He was God.”

Thursdays With Oswald−Remorse Is Hell On Earth

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.

Oswald ChambersRemorse Is Hell On Earth

     Never mistake remorse for repentance; remorse simply puts a man in hell while he is on earth, it carries no remedial quality with it at all, nothing that betters a man.

From Conformed To His Image

I meet people all the time who are sorry for the wrong things they’ve done, and perpetually beat themselves up over those sins. As Chambers says, their remorse has created a hell on earth and it doesn’t do a single thing to help them.

Even a great man like the Apostle Paul felt the hell-on-earth trap of remorse. “I know what the wrong thing is and I don’t want to do it, but I give in and do it anyhow. I say I’m not going to do it again, but I do it again. Oh, what a wretched man I am! (see Romans 7:15-24). That’s where remorse leaves us, and the devil uses that feeling of remorse to condemn us and to imprison us in his hell on earth.

Repentance, on the other hand, is feeling bad for the sin and also asking God to forgive us through the work Jesus Christ did on the Cross—Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord! (Romans 7:25). As a result of this repentance and forgiveness Paul can then conclude…

So now there is NO CONDEMNATION for those who belong to Christ Jesus. And because you belong to Him, the power of the life-giving Spirit has freed you from the power of sin that leads to death. (Romans 8:1-2)

Remorse imprisons. Repentance and forgiveness are the only things that free us!

God’s Favorite Place On Earth

God's Favorite Place On Earth [web]“God doesn’t have favorites. Everyone and everyplace is His favorite.” Do you think that’s true? If God had a favorite place on earth, where do you think that would be? What about the favorite place for Jesus during His earthly ministry? Was it maybe the nation of Israel? The city of Jerusalem?

Jesus did have a favorite place while He was on earth, and what He did there has major implications for all of us today!

The title of this series is taken from a book Frank Viola wrote (you can read my review of this book by clicking here). In an email correspondence, Frank told me that this book was the most critical of all his works to date, and I must agree! So we’re going to use this book as our guide to visit God’s favorite place on earth and let the pages of Scripture speak to us in a new and exciting way.

I am so excited to get started! Will you please join me this Sunday at 10:30am.

Just One Question

Grace's trophyPaul makes it quite clear in Ephesians 2 what we are apart from Jesus Christ:

  • Dead in our transgressions and sins (v. 1)
  • Following the ways of the world and selling out to satan’s dominion (v. 2a)
  • In obstinate opposition to God (v. 2b)
  • Living only for our own wicked cravings (v. 3a)
  • The objects of God’s righteous wrath (v. 3b)

The penalty is a death sentence. Yet God made Jesus—the perfect, sinless One—to be sin in our place so that God’s judgment would fall on Jesus Christ instead of us. That is what Paul describes as God’s great love and rich mercy (v. 4).

Mercy means not getting the punishment we should have received.

It would have been enough if God stopped there by showing mercy, but He didn’t! God brought us back to life, saved us from eternal damnation, and raised us up with Christ to a position of honor (vv. 5, 8-9). What did this? God’s amazing grace! 

Grace means getting blessings that we never should have received. 

God did this in order that we might be trophies of the incomparable riches of His grace and His kindness… (v. 7).

Gordon MacDonald said, “The world can do almost anything as well as or better than the church. You need not be a Christian to build houses, feed the hungry, or heal the sick. There is only one thing the world cannot do. It cannot offer grace.

So just one question…

What does the world learn about God’s grace by watching you and me?

Links & Quotes

link quote

These are links to articles and quotes I found interesting this weekend.

[VIDEO] This is dead-on right! The problems with ObamaCare run much deeper.

Now President Obama is using ObamaCare to hide illegal aliens from the law!

[VIDEO] John Maxwell says, “this isn’t a sexy word,” but it is imperative: Endurance.

“This poor Bible is become an almost obsolete book, even with some Christians. There are so many magazines, periodicals, and such like ephemeral productions, that we are in danger of neglecting to search the Scriptures.” —Charles Spurgeon

4 Reasons Why Friends With Benefits Is A Really Bad Idea

A great reminder about the blessing of being able to relax in God.

Soon scientists will be able to create a ‘mug shot’ from your DNA.

The pro-abortion crowd likes to say legalized abortion makes life safer for women. But these facts show they are dead wrong!

“You may wonder how many times the Lord will forgive you for indulging the same sin again and again. Rest assured, His incredible forgiveness is unlimited. Every time you sin, you can go to Jesus and find deliverance. Yet the Lord’s forgiveness is not unwise or blind. To be sure, our heavenly Father forgives us, but at a certain point He punishes us to keep us from continuing in sin. … What, exactly, does it mean to fear the Lord? It means being able to say, ‘I know my Father loves me. I am safely, forever His, and I know He will never abandon me. He feels my pain whenever I struggle and He is patient with me as I war against sin. He is always ready to forgive me whenever I call on Him, but I also know He is not going to allow me to keep disobeying His Word. My heavenly Father will not spare me—because He loves me deeply.’” —David Wilkerson

Poetry Saturday—Work For The Day Is Coming

Annie Coghill
Work, for the Day is coming,
Day in the Word foretold,
When, ‘mid the scenes triumphant,
Longed for by saints of old,
He, who on earth a stranger
Traversed its paths of pain,
Jesus, the Prince, the Savior,
Comes evermore to reign.

Work, for the Day is coming,
Darkness will soon be gone;
Then o’er the night of weeping
Day without end shall dawn.
What now we sow in sadness
Then we shall reap in joy;
Hope will be changed to gladness,
Praise be our blest employ.

Work, for the Day is coming,
Made for the saints of light;
Off with the garments dreary,
On with the armor bright:
Soon will the strife be ended,
Soon all our toils below;
Not to the dark we’re tending,
But to the Day we go.

Work, then, the Day is coming,
No time for sighing now;
Prize for the race awaits thee,
Wreaths for the victor’s brow.
Now morning Light is breaking,
Soon will the Day appear;
Night shades appall no longer,
Jesus, our Lord, is near. —Annie Coghill

7 Quotes From “The Greatest Words Ever Spoken”

The Grestest Words Ever SpokenObviously the best quotes from The Greatest Words Ever Spoken are from Jesus Himself. But Steven K. Scott, who complied the words of Christ into this unique format (you may read my book review by clicking here) had some good things to say too.

“No occurrence in history or physical science has been verified with a higher degree of statistical certainty than the fact that Jesus is exactly who He claimed to be—the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” 

“We cannot worship the Father in spirit or in truth unless we see Him for who He really is and understand His relationship with the Son.”

“Agnostics hold the position that they simply do not know if God exists. Atheists, on the other hand, claim intellectual superiority over all others, saying they know there is no God.”

“If you want to know what God thinks and feels, how He acts and works, what grieves Him and what pleases Him, all you have to do is read the words and observe the behavior of Jesus Christ.”

“Several years ago a string of four letters took the Christian community by storm. It seemed like WWJD, which stands for ‘What would Jesus do?’ was everywhere—and why not? When a choice has to be made, is any other question more important to ask? The answer is ‘Yes, one question is more important. One question Christians should ask before choosing any course of action, making any spiritual decision, or adopting any value or belief.’ That question is ‘WDJS: what did Jesus say?’ This is the question Christians need to ask because in many situations we simply can’t know for sure what Jesus would do, so we are left to figure it out for ourselves. And figuring it out may require more wisdom, revelation, insight, and spiritual maturity than we possess at the time. … Jesus made more statements about how His followers should live and what they should believe than about any other group of topics.”

“By nature, we evaluate nearly every situation according to its immediate impact on our desires, and we make our choices accordingly. Consequently, we often sacrifice that which would bring infinite eternal benefit in exchange for temporary gratification.”

“Jesus shows us that blaming others for our failures is not only offensive to God; it is detrimental to our relationships. While we all want healthier relationships, most of us have a hard time breaking free from our natural inclinations. The words of Christ… can bring about extraordinary change in every relationship in your life, for the rest of your life. … We can have better relationships with anyone who crosses our path, but it doesn’t happen naturally. Jesus provides both the revelation and the power that frees us from our human nature.”

Links & Quotes

link quote

These are links to articles and quotes I found interesting today.

[INFOGRAPHIC] How Long Is The Bible?

This is a part of a lengthy quote from Richard Baxter about a husband’s responsibility to maintain marital love: “Take more notice of the good, that is in your wives, than of the evil. Let not the observation of their faults make you forget or overlook their virtues. Love is kindled by the sight of love or goodness.” Check out the full quote.

[VIDEO] A pregnant mom finds out her son has Down Syndrome, and she’s scared. Watch how children with Down Syndrome respond to her.

John Piper on Lesbian Sex, HIV, Esau and Christ.

“You ask ‘for what’ God wants you. Isn’t the primary answer that He wants you. We’re not told that the lost sheep was sought out for anything except itself [Matthew 18:12-14; Luke 15:3-7]. Of course, He may have a special job for you: and the certain job is that of becoming more and more His.” —C.S. Lewis