When God loves another through you, all three of you are blessed.

One man gives freely, yet gains even more;

another withholds unduly, but comes to poverty.

A generous man will prosper;

he who refreshes others will himself be refreshed.

Proverbs 11:24-25 NIV84

He who is kind to the poor lends to the LORD, 

and he will reward him for what he has done.

Proverbs 19:17 NIV84

A generous man will himself be blessed, 

for he shares his food with the poor.

Proverbs 22:09 NIV84

He who oppresses the poor 

shows contempt for their Maker, 

but whoever is kind to the needy 

honors God.

Proverbs 14:31 NIV84

Seek first his kingdom (Jesus is the King) 

and his righteousness (Jesus gives us His righteousness),

and all these things (food, clothing and shelter)

will be added unto you as well.

Matthew 6:33

“Then the righteous will answer Him, saying, 
‘Lord, when did we see You hungry and feed You, or thirsty and give You drink?  
When did we see You a stranger and take You in, or naked and clothe You?  
Or when did we see You sick, or in prison, and come to You?’  
And the King will answer and say to them, 
‘Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these My brethren, 
you did it to Me.’ 
Matthew 25:37-40 NKJV

When I don't give freely for the benefit of others one of the reasons is that I fear I won't have enough for myself.  I used to force myself to give and when I did give I would find no joy in it at all.  But the above verses point to another way.  What would happen to my giving - and to me - if I didn't have to worry about running out of money (resources)?  What would happen if, when God told me to give more than I thought I could afford, I trusted God to miraculously provide what I needed ?  God, who wrote the above verses, and who cannot lie, said that if I am generous I will: gain even more, prosper, be refreshed, be rewarded, be blessed, and honor God.

But being generous takes guts.  I have to rely on the unseen.  My only guarantee that my finances will work out is that God's Word promises God will come through for me when I obey Him.  I have to put Him to the test.  But when I do put Him to the test, He comes through and I experience His joy.

Satan doesn't like this, and always throws doubt into my mind, trying to get me to believe the lie that God doesn't fulfill His promises.  Satan says, "It's a coincidence."  "That would have happened anyway."  "People will think you're crazy if you tell them, 'God did it miraculously.'"  But if you give God the credit due Him, He will provide you a list of proofs.  My more recent list includes:  When neither my wife nor I had a job and we decided to continue giving to the ministries we usually give to, at the same level as we always had - we always had enough to pay the bills each month.  We tithe, and without me looking for it, I received an email from out of nowhere advertising the job of my dreams.  I was hired for the job of my dreams while doing a double tithing challenge.  I needed hearing aids to do my new job and God provided them for me though the sacrificial giving of others.

The biggest benefit of giving isn't in the pocketbook but in the soul.  I enjoy giving now (except for the times I don't have the guts to trust God).  And I don't give to get rich.  I've specifically asked God not to make me rich and not to make me poor, but to give me what I need for today and tomorrow.

 “Two things I ask of you, O LORD; do not refuse me before I die:

 Keep falsehood and lies far from me; give me neither poverty nor riches, but give me only my daily bread.

 Otherwise, I may have too much and disown you and say, ‘Who is the LORD?’  Or I may become poor and steal, and so dishonor the name of my God.

Proverbs 30:7-9 NIV84

 When I held onto what I had with a tight fist I didn't have enough.  When I opened my hand to help others, God refilled my open hand to give again and again.  God wants to do good through you, won't you trust Him enough to let Him?

New Motivation

Think of a good day you have had.  Your work was challenging but through hard work you gained success.  You imagined another successful step down the path of your career and you made it happen.  You felt accomplishment and relaxed at the end of the day with friends and/or loved ones.  Imagine this day being visually represented as a white card.

Now think about the time when you REALLY didn’t feel like doing something.  Something very difficult, that you weren’t good at, had little chance of success, but were forced to do anyway.  And you felt doing it would not ultimately benefit you.  Now imagine you feel real mental pain as you do this.  And once you are done putting in the intense, exhausting effort to complete this task, you feel no sense of reward, no good feelings, no sense of accomplishment.  And, you feel no sense of completion of the day’s work.  Now imagine that this once-in-a-while-really-bad-day of yours is visually represented by a light gray card.

To some with mental illness it is much worse... every day is a black card day.

Before I had mental illness I had a normal suburban middle class life.  If you asked me if I ever had a really bad day I would be able to tell you with conviction that I had suffered bad days, days I didn’t want to do anything, days as bad as anyone’s.  But these bad days were qualitatively different from, and quantitatively of less intensity than, my average day of depression.

When someone has a broken leg you can see it, you hold the door for them, you are sympathetic.  But mental illness is invisible.  The person who struggles looks the same as a healthy person.  An analogy that comes to mind is someone who is swimming in a pool and someone who is swimming in transparent wet concrete.  The problem is not only the difficulty of swimming in concrete, but the invisible injustice that others are seeing you, and judging you, as if you were swimming in the same water they were.

What are some of the ways “we” experience transparent wet concrete while “you” experience water?  There is so much that a healthy functioning brain does that I was not aware of until I didn’t have it.  When I was depressed my emotions shut down but I didn’t know it.  When I drove my car and the light turned red, my foot did not automatically come off the gas and on to the brake.  I thought: “The light is red.  I have to stop.  Why isn’t my foot coming off the gas?”  I had to consciously force my foot to come up and then consciously force my foot to go down on the brake to stop.  Everything that used to be automatic was now consciously forced “drudgery”.  This is just one of many changes depression made in me; none of them for the better. 

Another example of “us” swimming in transparent wet concrete while “you” are swimming in water – is income.  Mental illness (many times) lowers income.  There is a big difference in how hard it is, how long it takes, how much of the elements you have to face, and how much you can get done in a day when you can only afford public transportation as compared to having your own car.  When I am asking someone to pick up their meds, I am thinking of the half hour round trip it takes me to drive-thru my neighborhood pharmacy.  Someone else using public transportation may have to wait half an hour in sub-zero wind chill, or rain, or blistering heat, just to catch the first leg of their bus journey to get to the pharmacy.  And they may do all of this without the benefit of a healthy brain.

I just do not know the difficulties faced by others, and I do not want to deceive myself into thinking I do.  In another analogy, until they experience sight, blind people have no ability to imagine light or color.  And, similarly, deaf people don’t know what is really meant by someone referring to sound until they have experienced it.  Like them, I have no idea what it is like to experience another’s mental illness.  For example, I don’t know what it is like to hear audible voices (that no one else hears).  I myself deal with malicious emotions that tell me I am worthless, to give up, it’s no use to try to do this job, etc.  But they are feelings not audible voices.  And though I might think I know a little of what they are going through, I really need to talk to them and not assume their experience is similar to mine.  I suggest to you that until you experience severe depression you have no idea how deep that pit is, how black it is, and how steep the walls are.  And you may have no idea how hard it is to survive it, much less get out of it.

Yet even though you haven't experienced it, you care.  And I wildly applaud you for spending your one and only precious life on this earth investing in our good.  You could be making more money, with better hours, and less unpaid overtime, doing much more pleasant activities.  But you choose to use your strength to lift us up - the struggling.  I know from experience how hard it is to be mentally ill, and yet some of you have more compassion and give more effort than I do to help heal those whose wounds you can't even see.  Much of the time you work without the world’s applause, (which it reserves for those who have truly noteworthy contributions to make - like highly paid professionals who put a bouncy ball through a metal ring ;>).  For those who cannot or will not, let me sincerely say thank you for caring about us and for putting that caring into action.  You will never know this side of heaven what you have meant to those of us who desperately needed your help.

You care and you act on that caring so I am not asking you to cry boo hoo for those of us who have dealt with, or are dealing with, mental illness.  What I am asking though, is that you consider the possibility that others experience life intrinsically different than you.  An experience of life that makes some of the easiest tasks that others do each day – and take for granted – very, very difficult for us.  And if you feel this difficult life is possible, grant us patience in proportion to the difficulty you believe we face.

________________________________________________________________________

The preceding was written originally for mental health clinicians to both provide a glimpse of what some of us mentally ill experience every day and to thank them for caring enough about us to do a difficult and sometimes thankless job.

Obeying God and Putting His Promises to the Test

Sometimes, after you have been a Christian for a while, you have so much of your life, relationships and self invested in "God" that the thought of Him not coming through for you and therefore having proof He is not real is terrifying.  To find out that what you have based your life on is a lie is too embarrassing a thought to deal with.  So, we hedge our bets.  We pray, "God, you said that if I put you first, as Lord and Savior, you would provide for me and my family.  But if you don't, I will still love you and trust you and feel the same way about you".  This may sound good, but I suggest that this kind of faith is not honored in the Bible.  What is most important to God is our intimacy with Him, our trust in Him, our faith in Him.  And God says in the Bible that this faith is more precious than gold.  It is so important to God that He will rock our world until we come to the point of saying, "God, I have put You first.  You said that if I did, you would supply food, clothing and shelter for me and my family.  You have to come through for me.  I have no plan "B".  You promised you would and I am holding You to it.  If you don't, then I have no reason to trust You anymore."

God doesn't say not to put Him to the test.  God says not to put Him to a foolish test.  Satan suggested to Jesus that He jump off the top of the temple because God promised to send His angels to hold Him up.  Jesus answered that it is written, do not put God to a foolish test.  If God says He will do something for you when you obey Him, He wants you to test that.  Obey Him and then hold Him accountable for what He promised.  That's not a foolish test.  That's faith.

And here's my disclaimer:  Though I have had success in trusting God, I have also experienced complete hypocritical failure at trusting God.  I am not an expert.  For every time I have trusted God and seen Him keep His promises, I have not trusted Him multiple times (with disastrous results).  A turning point in my life came when I trusted God and obeyed His teaching by refusing to participant in the production of certain advertising promoting what I felt was pornography, abortion, or the occult.  I risked my family's main means of support because of this apparent insubordination.  Many true friends prayed for us.  God gave me the chance to talk about His heart of love and concern for people to top levels of management.  God softened the heart of the main decision maker who eventually said I could go back to work without having to touch these ads. (True to God's style, five years later He had this same company ask me to write large religion section advertising telling people about the love and acceptance of Jesus.  This series of ads ran for fourteen years).

You'd think I would have "lived happily ever after".  However, less than two weeks after being cleared to not do these ads, I caved in to the gripping fear of losing my livelihood. I moved an objectionable ad from its wrong position on the page to the right position, an ad I previously said I would not touch even to the point of losing my job.  I did it because I was afraid people would think of me as a self-righteous hypocritical trouble maker and reject me if I caused them problems (this was satan lying to me, because I worked with some great people).  There after whenever I was presented with an objectionable ad I always struggled with whether Jesus would protect my job or not if I refused to do the ad.  It was never told to anyone I worked with that I didn't have to do these ads and I feared others' resentment for having to do them for me.  There are too many other examples of my failure in trusting God and too embarrassing as well.

It can be hard, very hard, to decide to obey God.  But when I obey Him, He always makes it worth it.  And when I don't, I always eventually regret it, wishing I had obeyed Him.

A sign from Heaven

The religious leaders of Jesus' day demanded He give them a miraculous sign from heaven to prove He was the Messiah:

Matthew 12 NKJV
³⁸Then some of the scribes and Pharisees answered, saying, “Teacher, we want to see a sign from You.”
³⁹But He answered and said to them, “An evil and adulterous generation seeks after a sign, and no sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. ⁴⁰For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. ⁴¹The men of Nineveh will rise up in the judgment with this generation and condemn it, because they repented at the preaching of Jonah; and indeed a greater than Jonah is here. ⁴²The queen of the South will rise up in the judgment with this generation and condemn it, for she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon; and indeed a greater than Solomon is here.

The spectacle of miracles was not as important to Jesus as changed lives through the demonstration of God's loving character.  Soul healing through the loving sign of physical healing was the goal of Jesus' miracles for those who believed in God's love.  Irrefutable proof of His divinity thrilled those who loved God and confounded those who did not.  His works of love proclaimed Him Messiah, Christ, the Son of God, God in the flesh.  Jesus said that those confounded would not be guilty if He had not come and done what no one else has ever done.

John 15 NKJV
²²If I had not come and spoken to them, they would have no sin, but now they have no excuse for their sin. ²³He who hates Me hates My Father also. ²⁴If I had not done among them the works which no one else did, they would have no sin; but now they have seen and also hated both Me and My Father. ²⁵But this happened that the word might be fulfilled which is written in their law, ‘They hated Me without a cause.’

Jesus told His followers that the works that He did they would do, and even greater:

John 14 NKJV
¹²“Most assuredly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do he will do also; and greater works than these he will do, because I go to My Father. 

John 15 NKJV
²⁶“But when the Helper comes, whom I shall send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, He will testify of Me. ²⁷And you also will bear witness, because you have been with Me from the beginning.

 Control the wind and the waves?  Change water into wine?  Multiply bread and fish and feed thousands from one person's small lunch?  Grow back missing limbs?  Heal the sick?  Raise the dead?  Greater than these?  I might think that impressing the masses with these spectacular miracles is Jesus goal. But Jesus' ultimate purpose for doing miracles was to give Life to the spiritually dead and introduce them to a relationship with His Father who loved them.  This He could greater accomplish by loving multitudes of people through multitudes of His followers who love by the power of His Spirit living within them.  That is greater than any spectacle.

So what is the final proof that Jesus is God?  Ask one of His followers what He has done for them personally.

I'm Listening

Have you ever noticed that we don't have any "problems" anymore?... we only have "issues"?  I think we are so much better off.  And we don't "make progress", we "move forward".  I know I've benefited immensely from that change.  But seriously, new words to old concepts bring a new perspective and help us freshly rethink meaning.  But the concept hasn't changed.  We have.

What is the difference between "truth" as I perceive it, as you perceive it, and as it "Truly" is apart from distorted perception?  And, if you believe there is "no absolute truth", do you believe that that statement is absolutely true?

Joshua 5 NIV84 

13 Now when Joshua was near Jericho, he looked up and saw a man standing in front of him with a drawn sword in his hand. Joshua went up to him and asked, “Are you for us or for our enemies?”
14 “Neither,” he replied, “but as commander of the army of the LORD I have now come.” Then Joshua fell facedown to the ground in reverence, and asked him, “What message does my Lord have for his servant?”
15 The commander of the LORD ’s army replied, “Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy.” And Joshua did so.

Jesus' Truth does not belong to Republicans or Democrats, conservative evangelicals or liberal universalists.  Jesus disciples included a former political freedom fighter (Simon the Zealot) and a former political oppressor (Matthew the Tax Collector).  They included common uneducated fishermen (Peter, James and John) and the intelligentsia (Paul).  Jesus loves all.  And all can be transformed by His Truth.

Steven Covey implied that you can only hope to influence another if you risk being influenced by them.  Why don't we agree to disagree and still love each other and talk to each other.  Instead we accuse each other of "hate", call each other "sinners", refuse to listen to the other's point of view, and refuse to allow ourselves to be influenced by the other's pain.  Are we so insecure in what we believe, that we that we can't allow ourselves to learn from each other?

Jesus' enemies hated Him because His Truth exposed their flaws.  The people who loved Him (the common people) loved Him because they had the courage to acknowledge their flaws and accept His forgiveness and acceptance and healing.  In His Truth they saw the power of God's love to change their life.  He didn't ask them to first be perfect.  He asked them to trust His love to change them by following Him.  His enemies (the self-righteous religious crowd) didn't want anything to do with Jesus' love and Truth changing their life.  They loved themselves just the way they were.  They were right.  They were perfect.  Sound like anyone you know?  I know it sounds like me.

I was in the depths of severe mental illness for ten years while God proved to me I was a sinner.  It took that long, not because He is cruel, but because I refused to see the Truth.  I had to admit my flaws and my need of His forgiveness and new Life.  I wouldn't wish mental illness on anyone.  But I would go through it all again if it was the only way for me to meet Jesus.

Our society is polarized to the point of dysfunction.  The answer does not lie in waiting for "the other side" to wise up.  The answer does not lie in political force.  The answer lies in the listening ear of Jesus.  And because He values you enough to listen to you, I value you enough to listen to you.  Do you value me enough to let me listen to you?

  

God "embarrasses" Himself with Love

Luke  15:11-32 NKJV

11 Then [Jesus] said: “A certain man had two sons. 12 And the younger of them said to his father, ‘Father, give me the portion of goods that falls to me.’ So he divided to them his livelihood. 13 And not many days after, the younger son gathered all together, journeyed to a far country, and there wasted his possessions with prodigal living. 14 But when he had spent all, there arose a severe famine in that land, and he began to be in want. 15 Then he went and joined himself to a citizen of that country, and he sent him into his fields to feed swine. 16 And he would gladly have filled his stomach with the pods that the swine ate, and no one gave him anything.
17 “But when he came to himself, he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired servants have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger! 18 I will arise and go to my father, and will say to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you, 19 and I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Make me like one of your hired servants.”’
20 “And he arose and came to his father. But when he was still a great way off, his father saw him and had compassion, and ran and fell on his neck and kissed him. 21 And the son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and in your sight, and am no longer worthy to be called your son.’
22 “But the father said to his servants, ‘Bring out the best robe and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand and sandals on his feet. 23 And bring the fatted calf here and kill it, and let us eat and be merry; 24 for this my son was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’ And they began to be merry.
25 “Now his older son was in the field. And as he came and drew near to the house, he heard music and dancing. 26 So he called one of the servants and asked what these things meant. 27 And he said to him, ‘Your brother has come, and because he has received him safe and sound, your father has killed the fatted calf.’
28 “But he was angry and would not go in. Therefore his father came out and pleaded with him. 29 So he answered and said to his father, ‘Lo, these many years I have been serving you; I never transgressed your commandment at any time; and yet you never gave me a young goat, that I might make merry with my friends. 30 But as soon as this son of yours came, who has devoured your livelihood with harlots, you killed the fatted calf for him.’
31 “And he said to him, ‘Son, you are always with me, and all that I have is yours. 32 It was right that we should make merry and be glad, for your brother was dead and is alive again, and was lost and is found.’”

God, our Heavenly Father, the Creator of the Universe, loves us with such intensity, that He "embarrasses" Himself in His pursuit of a relationship with us.  There is nothing so undignified or beneath Him that He won't do it to win our hearts to Him.  (I am not talking about sin of course).  In the above parable the son disgraced his father and himself and trampled their relationship by demanding his inheritance while his father was still alive.  Yet his father loved his son, kept watch for him, and ran to greet him as soon as he saw him coming back.  In Jesus' day and culture a dignified adult man would not run, it was considered beneath him.  Yet Jesus portrays God, Jesus' Heavenly Father, as someone who loves us so much that He is willing to "embarrass" himself by running to greet us to communicate His great love for us.

Of course, this was ultimately shown when He hung naked, brutally beaten and bloody, nailed to the cross, dying, so that he could provide a way for us to spend eternity with Him.

Love doesn't get any greater than that.

When you die and meet Jesus He will not ask you about the size of your bank account, what neighborhood you lived in, the car you drove, whether you never smoked, drank or danced, how much you gave, whether you never missed church... etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.

He will ask you, however, what did you do with "Him". He gave you His all.  He gave you Himself.  He does not condemn you.  He does not demand perfection.  He wants surrender.  He just wants you.  He wants an unhindered love relationship between you and Him.

What are you telling Him everyday by how you are living your life now?  Go back to Him.  He is waiting for you.  And when He sees you turn, He will run to greet you.

To whom much is given

There is a man I have the privilege of working with on a leadership project for our church.  He loves Jesus, his family, his church and more.  He has been the video production backbone of our team.

And he recently turned 14.

I wish I had had his wisdom when I was his age.

Luke 12:48b NKJV

For everyone to whom much is given, from him much will be required; and to whom much has been committed, of him they will ask the more.

This verse at first glance seems like a downer to me.  But this verse is like a coin.  One side is responsibility.  When God gives us much we are required to use it all and make the most of it.  The other side of the coin is blessedness, happiness, and joy.  When God gives us much we have the opportunity to love God and others with more.  And that results in ourselves and others having more opportunities to experience joy.

I believe this young man will continue with Jesus.  And make the most of his relationship with the Master.  And I believe he has much joy in his future: for God, others and himself.

Satan's lie about God

Under traffic sources in the statistics part of this blog's background functions are what I believe are sources of entry for those who read this blog.  I clicked on one of them and it went to a porn site.  (I quickly closed it and told my wife who was sitting in the living room with me).  Before I became a Christian I viewed pornography.  I eventually recognized its destructive influence on me and got rid of it (even before I knew Jesus).  But like an alcoholic who becomes sober and then stays away from alcohol I stay away from pornography.  And that's why I quickly closed it and told my wife.  She knows the password on my computer and I don't hide anything from her, in order to protect myself from falling back into slavery to pornography.

If you view pornography I do not condemn you and God does not condemn you.  God and I do, however, condemn what is destroying you and that is the pornography.  God loves people but He hates sin - because sin hurts the people he loves.

Sin is an attempt to get our God-given needs met outside of God's will.  Sin provides pleasure for a season but it will never satisfy the human heart's longing to be satisfied by God.  God is waiting for you to give up satan's worthless pleasure and seek Him to truly meet your needs.  God said, you will seek me and you will find me when you seek me with all of your heart.  Satan comes only to kill, steal and destroy.  Jesus comes so that me and you can have real life!  Jesus called Himself the Bread of Life, the wholesome nutrition for our souls that we might have true pleasure, true satisfaction, true life.

Satan will tell you that God is no fun.  God invented fun.  Satan will tell you that God is trying to steal the little pleasure you have left in life.  God is trying to introduce you to real pleasure that builds you up, not satan's counterfeit that tears you down.  Satan is trying to destroy us with pleasure-coated poison.  God is trying to give us food for our souls, what we truly need to be happy.

In the end, it's your choice.  But remember, if you always do what you've always done, you'll always get what you've always got.

If you want help please consider going to XXXchurch.com.  I have never gone to the site myself (for fear I would get targeted with spam from the porn industry) but I have heard good things about it from others.

Weather or Not Photography

Jim (Dad):  Jeremy, where did you take this shot?
Jeremy (Son): This photo was taken at a friend's house.
Jim: Why do you shoot so many weather photos?
Jeremy: Because I think it's beautiful.  And I love weather.
Jim: Have you had any photography training?
Jeremy: No.

Heaven for the Comfort, Hell for the Company

This is a phrase that I heard as a kid.  It means: I want to go to heaven to physically feel good and escape Hell's torment and pain; but I want to socialize with people in Hell because they are "real" and not hypocritically thinking they are better than me.  There is a lot of truth to this phrase.

Some people in church are hypocrites.  Talking Jesus but without accepting others as they are, not giving mercy, love, forgiveness, acceptance and grace.  The problem is these same people usually haven't experienced the unconditional love that Jesus offers.  They think what makes them a "christian" is going to church, obeying rules (that is, the ones they want to obey and ignoring the others), and being accepted by other "christians".  They have missed everything.  And that "everything" is a personal relationship with Jesus.

When a person truly knows Jesus they don't think they are better than you.  In fact, they believe they are your servant and put you first.  Not just if you are another Christian but regardless of who you are, what you believe or what you've done.  That's because that's what Jesus did... and still does.  Jesus counted Himself among sinners and is not ashamed to call us His brothers and sisters.

People don't become true Christians by following rules and pretending they are perfect. Rather they become true Christians by surrendering themselves to the Jesus they have learned to trust and love because they have seen Him love them first hand through one of His followers.

If you can't find a true Christian perhaps you want to consider investigating becoming a true Christian yourself?  Pray to God and tell Him you want to know Him.  Read the Bible starting in John (you can use the index to find it) and learn about Jesus' character and love for you and others.  Pray that God would lead you to one of His true followers, that they might help you know God better.  You can explore if Jesus is someone you want to spend your life and eternity with.  And being with Jesus is what makes heaven, heaven.