it is always better…

GOD’s plan for your life is always better.  when you cooperate with GOD’s plan for your life you can relax and you can stop being overwhelmed.

GOD looks at your life from an eternal perspective, not just the here and now.  GOD will always sacrifice short-term comfort in your life in order to gain long term glory in your life.  GOD will sacrifice short-term comfort in order to build character in your life that’s going to bless you for eternity.  GOD is not interested in making you comfortable.  GOD is interested in preparing you for eternity where you’re going to spend gazillions of years.  HE knows what’s best and HE knows what’s good and HE loves you.  that’s why being overwhelmed can actually be good for you.  it throws you to your knees saying, “GOD, i’m going to have to depend on you.”  and GOD says, “that’s exactly where I want you!

just a thought from the front porch…

character, miracles, and fulfillment…

JESUS backed up HIS claims for who HE was by HIS unprecedented character. so many times when you get to know someone, better and better, you see their shortcomings more and more obviously.

but the opposite was true of JESUS CHRIST. as HIS followers spent more time with HIM, got to know HIM more, they increasingly marveled at HIS purity and HIS holiness and HIS integrity. in fact, nobody was closer to HIM than peter and john and listen to what they said after spending three years with HIM in close proximity. john said, in HIM is no sin.

can you imagine somebody living with you and getting to know you really well for three years, what would they say about whether or not you ever did anything wrong? and then peter said, HE committed no sin and no deceit was found in his mouth. so HIS unique character validates HIS claim to being the one and only way to GOD.

HE also validated HIS claim by performing miracles. JESUS challenged them. HE said in john 10.37 (niv), don't you even believe ME unless I do miracles of GOD. in other words, anyone can claim to be the SON of GOD but unless I do miracles supernaturally to show you, don’t even believe me. and HE did perform miraculous things. and they weren’t done in some dark room in the quiet with just a couple of people there. HE did them in broad daylight. HE did them in front of skeptics and cynics. as a matter of fact you can look in books of ancient history of people who are opponents of JESUS CHRIST in ancient jewish writing, in the koran of islam, they all admit that JESUS did the miraculous. so HIS ability to do the miraculous further validates HIS claims of who HE was.

but the most spectacular demonstration of HIS deity: JESUS CHRIST fulfilled HIS own prediction and three days after HE was put to death HE was resurrected from the dead. and HE was encountered by more than 500 eyewitnesses. who else but the SON of GOD could spend three days in a tomb and then come forward and establish that HE had returned to life. there is monumental amounts of evidence that shows the resurrection of JESUS is not just wishful thinking, not just a legend of history but it’s an actual historical event.

not long after JESUS was put to death and resurrected just weeks later in that very same city, peter told a big crowd, “JESUS of nazareth was a MAN whose divine mission was clearly shown to you by the miracles and wonders and signs which GOD did through HIM.” he said, “you yourselves know this because it took place right here among you.” those people looked at him and said, “we know you’re telling the truth. we knew JESUS too. we saw it. we know that that’s true. and we have put to death the MESSIAH.” and 3000 of them that day turned away from their sins and put their trust in JESUS CHRIST and the church was born.

CHRISTianity is not just a philosophy. it is a reality. JESUS didn’t just claim that HE’s the one and only way to GOD. HE validated HIS credentials and fully established HIS credibility.

just a thought from the front porch…

do something you hate, to achieve something you love…

GOD uses pain to sharpen our character, to help HIS children become more like CHRIST. romans 5.3 (niv), we also rejoice in our suffering because we know that suffering produces perseverance, perseverance character, and character hope. it’s like the old saying, “no pain, no gain.”

listen the truth in improvement in our character and in our wisdom and in our virtue often comes through a process that involves hardship. it involves sacrifice. it involves trials. it involves difficulty. that’s how we learn, many times.

for instance, there could be no such thing as courage in a world where there’s no risk. hebrews 5.8 (tev) talks about JESUS CHRIST. even though HE was GOD’s SON HE learned to be obedient because of HIS sufferings. so here you have JESUS learning to be obedient. how? through HIS sufferings. so the question becomes, if that was true of the SON of GOD, why would that not be equally true of us?

the bible also says that GOD uses pain to lovingly discipline HIS children for their own good so they might learn the right path to take.

hebrew 12.19-11 (niv) says, our fathers disciplined us for a little while as they thought best. but GOD disciplines us for our own good that we may share in HIS holiness. no discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.”

we don’t usually relate discipline with the idea of something good. but that’s because we confuse discipline with punishment. punishment is retribution for misbehavior in our past. discipline is the loving way in which we correct someone’s behavior so their future will be better for this.

if you’re a parent, do you like to discipline your kids? no. but you do something you hate – which is discipline – in order to achieve something you love which is to protect your children from the harm that would befall them if they kept going down the wrong path that they were on.
just a thought from the front porch…

you can’t learn anywhere else...

work develops my character. that is another biblical purpose for work. GOD uses your job as a proving ground to develop your character.

luke 16.10-12 (niv), whoever can be trusted with very little can be trusted with much...if you have not been trustworthy in handling wordly wealth, who will trust you with true riches? and if you have not been trustworthy with someone else's property, who will give you your own?

GOD is more interested in perfecting you than pampering you. and there are many, many characteristics that you can learn on your job that you can't learn anywhere else.

i've written down this list of qualities: honesty, dependability, loyalty, sensitivity, patience, self-control, enthusiasm, flexibility, persistence, cheerfulness, fairness, integrity, confidence, forgiveness, punctuality just to mention a few.

GOD wants to develop character in your life. your job is a classroom for character.

now listen. some of you can't stand your boss. that boss, you say, is heavenly sandpaper on my life.

GOD wants to teach you from that boss, even if they are wrong, GOD wants to teach you.

you can leave the job but you will never learn the lesson and guess what, GOD will give you another chance with another boss. but the next time may be worse because GOD didn't get your attention, you didn't learn the lesson with the last one.

you see GOD is trying to teach you.

here is what i am saying, the most important thing that you bring home from your work is not your pay check. it is you, it is your character.

when you are considering a job, you should not only look at what does it pay me, but also what is it going to do to me? what am i going to become as a result of this job? because GOD says, work develops my character.

just a thought from the front porch…

if you respond in the right way…

another benefit of failure GOD uses it to cultivate me. it can actually cultivate my character, can help me grow in my character. romans 5.3-4 (lb), we can rejoice when we run into problems and trials for we know that they are good for us. they develop strength of character.

it says we can rejoice. now is that your typical reaction when you’re in pain? i doubt it. when you’re at the point of failure you don’t usually rejoice. it says, we can rejoice when we run into problems and trials for we know… what do we know? it’s what we know that makes us be able to rejoice. it’s not the problems that we rejoice over, it’s what we know that we rejoice over. we rejoice over the fact that GOD uses problems to cultivate our character. failure has a way of softening our hearts. it makes us sensitive to others. it makes us less judgmental. it makes us more sympathetic.

if you had an unbroken string of successes, if you never failed in life, if everything you did turned to gold, if every game you played you won, if the career you had always succeeded, if every investment you made, made millions of dollars, you had the midas touch, do you realize how difficult you would be to live with? you would be a pompous person. you would have an ego a mile wide. you would have so much pride, so much arrogance, ego in your life you would be impossible to live with. so GOD just makes sure all of us have a little bit of failure in our lives so we’re not so arrogant. GOD says, “i can use it to cultivate you.”

failure in your life does not automatically grow character. just because you have problems doesn’t automatically mean you’ll grow character. you only grow in character if you respond in the right way.

i know a lot of people who have been through problem after problem and they’re still jerks. they’ve had crisis after crisis, failure after failure, and they’re still idiots. why? they’ve never responded in the right way. they haven’t responded in the way GOD wanted them to so GOD couldn’t use it to educate them, motivate them, and cultivate them.

just a thought from the front porch…