Encouraging - Hypocrisy

This creates a wicked double jeopardy: older born-again believers may be emphasizing lifestyle and avoiding sin as a means of measuring faith maturity, but the behavior and perspectives of young Christians only intensify the perception that Christians are hypocritical. Older born-agains need to look more carefully at what Jesus teaches, that spiritual maturity is demonstrated in a life as an outcome of the condition of a person’s heart and soul, that behavior follows belief. And younger born-again Christians need to take an honest assessment of their lives and realize that they are increasingly poor witnesses of a life and mind transformed by their faith. Embracing personal integrity and rejecting compromises to personal purity are crucial goals for young believers. We cannot hope to shed our hypocritical label if our lifestyles offer no proof of the “fruit” of Christlikeness. These are tough realities to think about, but we must do so if we hope to shift our reputation from un-Christian to Christian.

David Kinnaman and Gabe Lyons, unChristian: What a New Generation Really Thinks about Christianity... and Why It Matters (Baker Books, Grand Rapids, MI: 2007), 54.

Encouraging - God's Presence

All Christians want to know God in a close, personal way, but often this desire is not fulfilled. We frequently hear believers say, “God never seems close to me. Is He really listening to my prayers?” We lack assurance that God is intimately concerned with us. Yet, followers of Christ are never satisfied to stay in this condition for long. A husband and wife who are in a happy marriage can be separated for a time, but soon they will begin to miss each other. The same is true of believers and their God. From time to time we manage without a sense of God’s nearness, but a continuation of that state is unsatisfying. True believers yearn to be close to God and to feel the assurance of his personal attention.

Richard L Pratt Jr., Pray With Your Eyes Open: Looking at God, Ourselves, and Our Prayers (P & R Publishing Company, Phillipsburg, NJ: 1987) p. 55.

Encouraging - True Value

Isn’t it amazing that we turn to others who have a perspective as limited and darkened as our own to discover our worth! Rather than relying on God’s steady, uplifting reassurance of who we are, we depend on others who base our worth on our ability to meet our standards. Because our performance and ability to please others so dominate our search for significance, we have difficulty recognizing the distinction between our real identity and the way we behave, a realization crucial to understanding our true worth. Our true value is based not on our behavior or the approval of others but on what God’s Word says is true of us. Our behavior is often a reflection of our beliefs about who we are. It is usually consistent with what we think to be true about ourselves (Prov 23:7).

Robert S. McGee, The Search For Significance: Seeing Your True Worth Through God's Eyes (Thomas Nelson, Nashville, TN: 2003), 19-20.

Encouraging - Names of God

Similarly, one of the first steps toward renewing our attention to God is to address Him with variety. Variation creates new interest in God. For instance, thinking about Him as the “Exalted King,” “Master of the Universe,” “Giver of Life,” or “Mighty Fortress” immediately stirs our hearts. Unusual ways of calling on God evoke all sorts of concepts and attitudes. They help us focus more clearly on who God is and what He does for us. Consider…the many titles given to Jesus in the Old and New Testaments:

“Righteous Judge” (2 Tim 4:8)
“Head of the Church” (cf. Eph 1:22)
“Firstborn of creation” (cf. Col 1:15)
“Firstborn among many brothers” (Rom 8:29)
“King of Kings” (Rev 19:16)
“Morning Star” (Rev 22:16)
“Advocate” (cf. 1 John 2:1)
“Word of Life” (1 John 1:1)
“Alpha and Omega” (cf. Rev 1:8)
“Chief Cornerstone” (Eph 2:20)
“Prince of Peace” (Isa 9:6)
“Lamb of God” (John 1:29)
“Resurrection and Life” (cf. John 11:25)

Sadly, we seldom hear these titles of Christ used in prayer. Yet, each of them is packed full of powerful significance that draws us toward Him.

Richard L Pratt Jr., Pray With Your Eyes Open: Looking at God, Ourselves, and Our Prayers (P & R Publishing Company, Phillipsburg, NJ: 1987) p. 22.

Encouraging - Discipline

Our loving father has given us the Holy Spirit to convict us of sin. Conviction is a form of God’s discipline and serves as proof that we have become children of God (Heb 12:5-11). It warns us against making choices without regard to either God’s truth or sin’s consequences. If we choose to be unresponsive to the Holy Spirit, our heavenly Father will discipline us in love. Many people do not understand the difference between discipline and punishment…On the cross, Jesus bore all the punishment we deserve; therefore, we no longer need to fear punishment from God for our sins. We should seek to do what is right so that our Father will not have to correct us through discipline, but when we are disciplined, we should remember that God is correcting us in love. This discipline leads us to righteous performance, a reflection of Christ’s righteousness in us.

Robert S. McGee, The Search For Significance: Seeing Your True Worth Through God's Eyes (Thomas Nelson, Nashville, TN: 2003), 47-48.

Encouraging - Shopping List

This neglect of God reveals a basic misunderstanding about prayer. We often treat prayer like a spiritual shopping list. We walk into God’s general store, give a perfunctory nod in His direction, and then proceed to the real reason we came – the grocery list. We spend the bulk of our time listing one request after another, and God Himself takes second place. In fact, this habit of ignoring God suggests that we would prefer to find Him absent from the store so we would not have to bother with Him at all. How easy it is to forget that we are dealing with a divine Person, not a heavenly mail-order catalog. When we focus too much on what we need, we are bound to neglect the One whom we need.

Richard L Pratt Jr., Pray With Your Eyes Open: Looking at God, Ourselves, and Our Prayers (P & R Publishing Company, Phillipsburg, NJ: 1987) p. 20.

Book Review: Do Hard Things

As part of our summer reading list for our students, there is one book that serves as an all-school book for everyone to read. This year’s book I had heard about over the course of the last year and had wanted to pick up a copy, thus, I was happy to learn that we would be given a free copy. While I was stuck in the Chicago airport a few weeks ago, I took the opportunity to read Do Hard Things: A Teenage Rebellion Against Low Expectations by Alex & Brett Harris the two younger brothers of Joshua Harris (yes, the author of I Kissed Dating Goodbye followed soon thereafter by a sequel Boy Meets Girl which softened his stance somewhat from his first book).

Anyway, for those of you with teenagers in your life, Do Hard Things, is a great book written by teenagers. Most of the book consists of anecdotes surrounding the brothers’ blog, http://www.therebelution.com/ and the basic premise of raising the bar for personal expectations. The language speaks in a conversational tone relevant to a teenage audience. Throughout the book, there are lots of questions, such as “We need to be honest with ourselves. Is how we’re spending our time right now preparing us for what we hope to become in the future? Are we doing things now that will equip us for the greater things God may have for us to do? These are the fundamental questions for this season of our lives” (p. 56). Even though they are speaking primarily to a teenage audience, the basic premises are applicable to anyone’s lives. Such as when they describe the five kinds of hard:

1. Things that are outside of your comfort zone
2. Things that go beyond what is expected or required
3. Things that are too big to accomplish alone
4. Things that don’t earn an immediate payoff
5. Things that challenge the cultural norm.

One of the more poignant portions of the book for me dealt with the myth of adolescence and the rise of the kidults, which is particularly relevant in our society today. The book consists of multiple lists in easy digestible formats for any Gen Y person. So why am I writing about this book, well, if you are a little late on the high school graduation present, this book would serve as a nice little send off piece – a call to action.

Alex & Brett Harris, Do Hard Things: A Teenage Rebellion Against Low Expectations (Multnomah, Colorado Springs, CO: 2008)