Simple Math and Your Relationship with God

Most people hate math. Do you remember sitting in that math class when you were a kid and asking yourself, “how am I ever going to use this in my life?”  Maybe you were even bolder and you asked your teacher the same thing.  I only bring up math, because I want to ask you a question.  Have you ever sat down to take a math test, looked at a problem, and 10 minutes later realized that you had made that equation way more complicated than it really was?  I did that constantly.  I would begin throwing in tangents and powers of 22, and before I knew it, I was closer to charting the course of the planet Pluto than I was to solving that problem.  I tend to do that in life too.  I’ve realized that it’s not just me, and maybe you can relate too.

Often, we miss the most elementary truths as we complicate life’s issues.  We make our pursuit to become a great leader or to be successful and wealthy. We develop elaborate expectations and laws for ourselves that we feel God has of us.  We judge our standing with God by how we avoid sin and how much time we are spending in prayer and evangelism.  The apostle Paul, however, breaks it down for us in his letter to the Romans, “So now we can rejoice in our wonderful new relationship with God – all because of what our Lord Jesus Christ has done for us in making us friends of God” (5:1).

From the beginning, the point of life has been relationships.  When God created man, he created him for a relationship.  Because of that, we cannot find fulfillment in life unless we first are in an ever-deepening relationship with God: the entire reason why Jesus came and died for us. This means that the point of every day is not to build a better church or to make enough money to live a comfortable life.  It’s not even to avoid sin and become a better person. It’s even simpler than that.  The simple truth is that God just wants a relationship with us, a genuine, loving, deep relationship. It can’t get any more basic than that.  And it shouldn’t get much more complicated either.

Questions:
1.    What do you like/hate about math?
2.    What expectations weigh you down?  They might be expectations that others have of you, that you have of yourself, or that you feel God has of you.

Looking in the Mirror

by Fred Garmon

Examine for a moment Ephesians 4:1-3 (New Living Translation):

The Apostle Paul says, “…lead a life worthy of your calling, for you have been called by God.  2 Be humble and gentle. Be patient with each other, making allowance for each other’s faults because of your love.  3 Always keep yourselves united in the Holy Spirit, and bind yourselves together with peace.”

My initial assumption is that you are reading this article because you are  a “leader” or aspiring to “leadership.” So, let us discuss this extremely popular subject and narrow our focus to “Christian” leadership.

I have been intrigued by the study of leaders (people) and leadership (a process) for more than thirty years. My passion for leadership was and still is driven by the desire to learn as much as possible so that I could teach others how to be more effective leaders. But three decades of study and experience has revealed a wise revelation—while the process of leadership is about serving others, becoming a leader is about learning to play and tune your own personal instrument; and that instrument is the self—the instrument is YOU. Yes, becoming a leader requires that you turn a scrutinizing eye on yourself—and in so doing you will find that a few moments of brutal honesty can save you (and others you lead) years of pain.

The context of Paul’s instruction implies that the life Paul is alluding to is non-other than your own—“Lead YOUR life!” It is, therefore, from this scriptural foundation that I announce our first leadership principle; “Leadership development begins with self-development.”

So, pause for a moment and think deeply about this principle and let us begin our time together by wrestling with and discussing the following question:

What does “leading your life” or “self-development” look like?
Especially in light of the characteristics the Apostle Paul includes in this passage of scripture?

We Need More Simons

Christians in the arts need stronger negative critique and a serious commitment to excellence if we are ever going to make an impact on this generation. (By Chuck Quinley)

The First Thing

Many things help make a leader, but this first step is necessary if you are to every start on the life journey as an influencer and a strength to others. This five minute teaching from a seasoned leader will help you get off to a good start.

Does God Like You?

I was riding back from our Easter Weekend with Jacki’s family yesterday and the girls wanted to pop in an Adventure in Odyssey. If you haven’t heard of it, it is an audio series that tells stories to teach lessons (often to children). Anyway, both Jacki and her younger sister had fallen asleep so I was left listening to the story playing and one of the characters asked a question to their dad which I thought was a pretty good one. He was facing some trouble in school and was trying to find out what he needed to change to be liked more. When his dad told him that the opinion that mattered most to him was God’s, the son asked him,

Does God like me?

That question hit the sweet spot. My relationship with Christ started out with a deeeeeeeeep desire to please him and a feeling like I never could. I was constantly failing. Constantly letting him down. It was a part of who I was. I had flaws that kept tripping me up and personality traits that I was working so hard to change. If I was asked that question back then, I would have had a hard time answering it. I knew God loved me, but I didn’t know how he could like me. What was there to like anyway? I mean, if the whole point of being a disciple of Christ was “I must decrease so that he may increase” like we so often quote as Christians, then there must be something about the person that I am that God doesn’t like. Why else would he need to eradicate that in order for Christ to increase in me? I hear Christians say, “God wants to do something through me, I just gotta get myself out of the way before he can do it.” We approach ministry with the intention of showing people that God loves them. I think an equally important issue to address is the need to be liked. But can we really answer that question for people? What do you think?

Does God like you? Why?