Category: Character

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Hot Pursuit

We all are pursuing something. We were created to be and do. What we pursue is what we think most about. Our energy goes in that direction, our thoughts lead to actions to help us pursue that something.

I remember when I was pursuing my wife. We were in High School, she was two years older, a cheerleader, popular and somewhat interested in me. I found myself pursuing her, thinking about her all the time. I wanted to spend all my time with her. Whenever I had a chance to be with her, I chose that path. I pursued her even when she was not interested in me. That persistence paid off and we started going steady. I gave things up for her, I spent less time with my friends to be with her. I wanted her and so I pursued her.

I continued to pursue her through High School and through my first two years of college. I pursued her for 5 years. We got married on May 27th 1989. I have continued to pursue her over the past 20 years. I continue to think about her, spend time with her, have conflict with her, resolve conflict with her, serve her, learn about her and be with her.

When we pursue something with persistence we can achieve some amazing things. For me it has been 20 years of marriage. When you pursue your career and that is your main focus you can make lots of money. If you pursue physical fitness you can achieve amazing results like running marathons. If you pursue close friendships you can have amazing community, accountability and unconditional love. When you pursue knowledge/education you can become a expert on nearly anything you study.

What if you would pursue God like that? What if you pursued truth like that? What if you pursued wisdom like that? The results could be amazing as well. What would happen if you actually read through the entire Bible over the next three months? What would happen if you spent time daily praying, meditating on truth and thinking about God? What if you pursued God like you pursue your job or your marriage or your girlfriend or your education? What if He was the main thing you thought about no matter what was going on in your life?

We all pursue something, when we are not in pursuit of something we are stagnate, bored and often depressed. Pursuing something with passion has great power. What are you pursuing? A year from now how much closer will you be to what you are pursuing?

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Sexual Integrity

I went to a workshop over the weekend on Sexual Integrity. Four Mentors from NewPointe Community Church joined me. The speaker was Jason Martinkus from Redemptive Living and Every Mans Battle. Here are some of the notes I took:

Sexual additions are affecting everyone, whether famous, unknown, young or old. Here are some statistics that are eye opening:

  • Total porn industry revenue in the USA in 2006 was 13 Billion
  • Unique visitors to online porn sites in one month average is 61 Million
  • Revenue from mobile phone adult content so far in 2009 is 2.7 Billion
  • 60% of men in church struggle with online pornography
  • 30% of online porn viewers are women
  • The average age of introduction to pornography for young men is 9-11 yrs old

Jason then went on to share his personal story of sexual addiction and how it nearly destroyed his life. To read his story go to redemptive living.

Here are some more notes I took from his talk:

  • It’s not about the sex,but about the sin
  • Jesus always deals with the heart attitude, see Matthew 5:27-28. Behavior is just the actions of our heart.
  • Sexual immorality can impede our sanctification process
  • Sin always offers us something. Often it is an opportunity to meet a legitimate need in an illegitimate way.
  • There is a healthy & Unhealthy way to meet every need we have. Food is a good example, as is relationships and sex.
  • Two key enemies we face are the devil and the flesh.
  • Four areas of lies from the devil
  1. Lies about God & God’s will
  2. Lies about Scripture – Twisting the meaning of God’s Word
  3. Lies about our identity
  4. Lies about our heart

Countermeasures against those lies is how we prepare ourselves. Fasting & Prayer are keys. Are you connecting with God on a regular basis, growing deeper in your relationship with Him?

Notes from his talk about the flesh:
The Mind:

  • Philippians 4:8 – Think about these things – True, Noble, Right, Pure, Lovely, Admirable, Excellent, Praiseworthy. What you think about creates a worn path or highway in your mind.
  • When lustful thoughts kick in, you can’t just stop it, you must replace those thoughts with the good pure things in your life like your children, wife, sunrise, God’s creation, good food etc.
  • Objectification vs. Personification – seeing people as people and not as objects. Seeing a young woman as someones daughter, granddaughter or sister and not just an object.
  • The eyes – WYSIWYG – What you see is what you get! What you put your eyes on is what you store in your mind.
  • 1 & 1 Rule – No more than one look for one second. If you look at a woman and do not recognize her in that first one second, look away.
  • Internet & Phone filters are band aids dealing with symptoms and not the root issues.

The Body:

  • 1 Corinthians 6:19-20 – Make the temple, the body a really special place for the Holy Spirit to dwell.
  • One of the ways we defile our bodies is through masturbation
  • Masturbation is like giving yourself a hug, the medium through which you increasingly adore yourself. It keeps you trapped in the prison of yourself.

The Heart:

  • God is much more concerned about changing your heart, instead of your behavior.
  • Imago Dei – We are created in the image of an emotional God. We were created to experience emotional highs and lows and not stay steady or level all the time with our emotions.
  • You see this in children, high a low emotions (happy then crying). As they get older they rain in their emotions, because that is what we teach them to do.
  • We need to expand our emotional range to experience life to the fullest.
  • There are three levels of communication – Content, Thought, Emotion
  • Content is data, It’s the data of life. It’s sunny, it’s cloudy,
  • Thought is what I think about the data. I like it better when it’s sunny outside.
  • Emotion is what I feel about the content. When it’s sunny outside I feel energized and happier.
  • Most men stay on the content level of communication, because its safe.
  • Most women talk on an emotional level. When one person is talking on a content or thinking level and the other at a feeling level they miscommunicate.
  • To men, I hear what your thinking, tell me what you are feeling.

Holes in the heart:

  • We tend to put square pegs in the round holes in our hearts
  • Most of the holes in our hearts are developed in our childhood
  • Three most common holes
  1. Incompetence – Fear of Failure – not good enough, always need to improve or perform.
  2. Insignificance – Fear of Rejection – Do I really matter, Am I important?
  3. Impotence – Fear of Powerlessness – Can I make a difference?
  • You do what you do because you are looking for something. There is something driving you to go there. There is a reason you are doing what you are doing. Usually it is to fill a hole in your heart.
  • Sexual sin becomes a square peg to fill a round hole in our hearts.

Help for Hurting Souls:

  • Allies, You can’t do this alone. This can only happen if there is a no shame zone or a safe place to share without judgement.
  • We were created for community. Do you have an inner circle? Do you have men or women that will ask tough questions, love you unconditionally?
  • You need connection with people on a deep level and you need counsel from people that have walked the walk and can give you guidance.
  • With your allies, you need to share everything, come clean on everything. If you are holding something back, it will hold you back
  • Confession is vital to the beginning of recovery and wholeness.
  • To help people in sexual sin, Love and Grace are vital.
  • Connection, Accountability & Relationship are the keys to recovery.

I hope some of my notes were helpful to you. If you struggle with any kind of sexual sin, there is hope for you to overcome it. You can’t do it alone though, so get some help. Ask some people close to you to walk with you through this journey to sexual integrity.

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What’s Most Important?

What is distracting you from doing what is most important? What have you said no to lately? Here is a simple exercise I would highly recommend you trying.

Take a piece of paper and write goals at the top. Then list your top 10 goals for the next 12 months. It could be work related, health related, money related, spiritual or relational.

Once you have at least 10 goals listed ask yourself this question: If I could only accomplish one goal, but it would happen within the next 24 hours, which one goal would have the greatest positive impact on my life.

Circle that one goal that would have the biggest impact on you if it happened. Then flip the page over and start brainstorming how you can make that one goal a reality. List out several things that you could do immediately to start getting closer to that goal. Start saying no to other things that would distract you from achieving that goal, within reason. I don’t think it is wise to say no to your family, your marriage, your faith.

When we narrow the focus it helps us work on things that are really most important. Those important things that will impact our work. Those important things that would transform our marriage. Those important things that would impact our faith. Those important things that would impact our finances.

I know for me I need to start setting aside more time for the important stuff and limit the distractions. That takes some self-discipline and maybe learning some new habits. To make that happen you may need someone to coach you or mentor you or maybe even hold you accountable. That may sound like hard work, but that’s the only way to have lasting change happen in your life.

Don’t wait for the new year to start making changes in your life, start today.

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Fitness

Physical fitness and spiritual fitness go hand in hand. Both are highly beneficial, but difficult to achieve. Most everyone wants to eat right and exercise to have a healthy, strong body. Most everyone wants a close intimate relationship with God and the inner peace that comes from that. Why don’t we do it?

This is what God has laid on my heart lately. I need to develop some better physical fitness routines and spiritual fitness routines. I have some people that are going to hold me accountable over the next 90 days to work at improving the health of my physical heart and my spiritual heart.

How does this happen? Well for me it was a decision I made. I basically said. “OK God I’m ready”. This is the journey He is taking me on. I know that for me to go to a new level of spiritual leadership I need to develop some new habits and eliminate some old habits. Anytime I feel stuck it is usually because I have gotten comfortable in a routine or rut.

To get unstuck physically, emotionally or spiritually you first need to make a decision to change.

Then you need to find your motivation. Why do you want to lose weight, exercise, read your Bible or pray? Is it because other people want you to do that or because it is something you should do, or is because you desire to change and grow and be a better example to everyone around you. Finding your motivation is critical to the long term success of improved fitness.

Once you find your motivation to make the change then you need to find some people to hold you accountable and to go on the journey with you. Developing new routines and habits is hard work and it really helps to have people asking how you are doing. It also helps to have someone to encourage you when you don’t want to go exercise or read or eat healthy.

Once you have your accountability in place, you need to develop a strategy and some practical goals. That is the stage I am in right now. The next step is to start, don’t wait until everything feels right. You need to start making changes today – Are you ready?

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Checklist For Encouragers

Are you an encourager or a discourager? I believe that one of our purposes in life is to be an encouragement to the people in our lives. All of our relationships are improved when we encourage. The Bible talks a lot about encouraging one another. Here is a checklist for encourager’s:

  • Build each other up – Point out to someone a quality you appreciate in him or her.
  • Respect leaders – Look for ways to cooperate with and make your leaders look good.
  • Hold leaders in highest regard – Don’t make critical comments about those in positions of responsibility. Say thank you to your leaders for their efforts and don’t talk behind their backs.
  • Live in peace – Search for ways to get along with people. This means holding your tongue and looking for common ground.
  • Encourage the timid – Remind them of God’s promises and that you believe in them.
  • Help the weak – Show love through acts of kindness and pray for them. Be generous.
  • Be patient – Plan to stay calm in situations or conversations that try your patience.
  • Resist revenge – Instead of planning to get even with those who mistreat you, do good to them.
  • Be joyful – Always remember that God is in control – people are drawn to a person filled with joy. Choose to be joyful.
  • Pray continually – The more you talk to God the more you will be able to encourage others.
  • Give thanks – When you give thanks your attitude towards other people changes. People like being around grateful people.
  • Avoid every kind of evil – Avoid situations where you will be drawn into temptation, remember you are na example to someone.
  • Plug into God’s Power – The Christian life is to be lived not on our own strength, but through God’s Power
  • Watch your words – the words you use every day determine the level of your encouragement.

Look for opportunities this week to encourage the people you work with, live with and bump into. Every conversation, every encounter with another person is a chance to encourage them.

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Patterns & Routines

The older I get the more I find myself liking familiar routines and patterns. It becomes a little more difficult to change or to be motivated enough to want to change. The longer you have done a certain routine like what you typically do when you get home from work, or how you go about buying groceries, the harder it is to change it up. We have patterns like the TV shows we watch, the Internet sites we visit, the friends we talk to, the words we use, the food we eat and even the way we talk to our spouse or children.

We all have certain patterns and routines that make us feel comfortable and safe. Some call this our comfort zone. Some of that is good, but it can also keep us from experiencing the best things in life. You see I don’t think God wants us to be comfortable and safe. Comfortable and safe means we are not going to make much of a difference. We do have an enemy that wants us to be comfortable and safe; to get stuck in certain routines and patterns that keep us ineffective.

What have you risked lately? Do you always play it safe in your relationships? Do you have some patterns or routines that are unhealthy? Do you usually take the easier road? For me selfishness usually keeps me in the comfort mode. I think it’s the same for most people. We want to be happy and do things that benefit us or improve our situations.

God tells us repeatedly in the Bible to be courageous, to be strong and courageous. We don’t need to be courageous if we are living comfortable, safe lives. What is one thing you can do starting this week that will make you a little more dangerous. What can you do to make our enemy a little nervous. What pattern or routine do you need to change that will get you out of your comfort zone? What can you start doing today that would surprise your spouse or your friends in a good way?

Go ahead, take a risk, do something different, do something that would make God smile and say that was courageous.

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Where Do You Live?

On my run today(5 miles) this thought came to my mind: Where do you live?

Usually when we are asked that question we tell people what city we live in, that’s not what I am asking. Do you live in the past or in the present? Many of us get stuck in the past. It may have been a traumatic experience, a painful experience or even a fantastic experience. Those moments in our lives that impacted us in a positive or negative way. If we are reliving those moments in our minds, we are living in the past.

We all have had those defining moments in our lives, which is very important, it’s part of your story. The problem is that if we focus too much on those old defining moments we may miss some new defining moments. A negative experience from your past can be keeping you in fear of taking a risk in the present. A positive experience from your past can make you feel overconfident and keep you from continuing to grow.

So what should we do? I think we need to remember the past and learn from it, but we need to focus on the present and the future. When we glance at the past that’s OK. The problem is when the past becomes our focus we can no longer move forward.

That is why it is so important to have goals in all areas of our lives. It is important to be thinking about how you can make progress today. What changes you can make to improve the person that you are today. Yes you acknowledge your past, you learn from your past, you use your past experience to make better decisions today, but you don’t live there.

So where do you live?

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Trust Me Part 2

Trust is such a huge issue I thought I would continue to talk about it. For many of us trusting God seems to be a struggle, completely trusting that He is good, that He cares about us, that He is working for us and for our best interest can be hard when we are struggling just doing life.

Trust is warranted by consistent honor and care toward another. Trust can be betrayed in an instant, when we don’t honor and care for the people around us. God however never dishonors us, He never stops caring for us. As I thought about that I decided to look up Scriptures that talk about trust. Here are a few that spoke to me about the importance of trusting in God.

“Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the Lord our God.” Psalms 20:7

“Vindicate me, O Lord, for I have led a blameless life; I have trusted in the Lord without wavering. Test me, o Lord, and try me, examine my heart and mind; for your love is ever before me, and I walk continually in your truth.” Psalms 26:1-3

“Many are the woes of the wicked, but the Lord’s unfailing love surrounds the man who trusts in Him.” Psalms 32:10

“Trust in the Lord and do good…” Psalms 37:3

“In God, whose word I praise, in God I trust; I will not be afraid. What can mortal man do to me?” Psalms 56:4

“Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight.” Proverbs 3:5-6

“A gossip betrays a confidence, but a trustworthy man keeps a secret.” Proverbs 11:13

“Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me.” Jesus in John 14:1

Think about it like this. When your children trust you even though they don’t fully understand what you are telling them, how does that make you feel? When a friend says that she trusts you on this but does not see how it can work, how does that make you feel? When your spouse says she trusts you completely even though she does not understand everything going on, how does that make you feel?

God loves us more than we can ever love Him or other people. He never forces Himself on us or makes us do what He wants us to do. That is honoring us. He cares for us in ways we don’t even know. God wants our trust, He wants us to say, God I don’t understand what is happening around me, but I am choosing to trust you on this. I trust that you have my best interests in mind and are working for me. I trust that you are good and you care about me. I trust that you are going to bring some good out of all this mess.

When we do that it opens us up to receive the blessings that God has for us. It brings a peace and comfort to our lives that helps us through difficult circumstances. It changes our perspective on what is happening to us and how God is involved in that.

God is saying “Trust Me”

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Trust Me

Why is trust such a big deal? When I was in the business world of banking and consulting trust was a key ingredient to client development. When clients felt like they could trust you, they would be more loyal, worry less and take your advice more readily.

It’s the same in any relationship. Take the marriage relationship for example. When both husband and wife trust each other they are more committed to each other, they worry less about what the other is doing while they are not around and they tend to listen better and accept what they hear.

Whether in business , marriage, friendship or any other relationships trust is vital to good health. When you trust someone, there is a comfort or easiness about the relationship. If you don’t trust your friends, you are less likely to open up and share much about what is going on in your life. If you don’t trust your spouse you are going to be skeptical of everything they say or do. If you don’t trust God you will not believe everything He says and hold back from giving him all of you.

So how do you build trust? Henry Cloud made this statement “Where there is a failure in empathy and understanding, trust is not built.” For trust to happen we must listen well. When you listen to someone with the intent of trying to understand them or where they are coming from it builds trust. You do this by being fully present with them, asking questions to clarify and by not prejudging or jumping to conclusions. When you listen with empathy, you are trying to put yourself in their shoes and understand their hearts. When you listen well and someone feels like you understand them, trust is deepened.

Trust is also built by being actively involved in that persons life. When you show that you are actually interested in them as a person it builds a bond. Showing that you value them and want to get to know them will build trust and strengthen the relationship. God demonstrated this quite well, He desires to know us at an intimate level, to always be with us and to care about every single part of our lives. Read Psalm 139.

Trust is also built when we treat others well, no matter what they can or can’t do for us. It is easy to treat people well, when they treat you well. But what about the people that have hurt you or offended you? What about the spouse that has been distant and irritable. When we extend grace, which is unmerited favor, to other people it builds trust and respect. Remember God gives us unbelievable grace.

Trust is also built when we are real with people. When we share that we are not perfect and that we do mess up. When we admit our mistakes and ask for forgiveness. When people see that you are willing to open up and show your weaknesses it builds credibility and trust. The people around you already know your weaknesses and when you mess up. When you admit it, it shows that you are real and not fake. Fake people cannot be trusted.

We also trust people that do what they said they would do. When you walk the talk, so to speak it builds trust. This is an issue of character and integrity. When you make a promise do you follow through or do you drop the ball. When you tell your spouse you will do something do you follow through or do you usually forget. Dependable people build trust and are entrusted with more.

Trust is not something that is just freely given. People don’t usually blindly trust. Trust is earned by our behavior. To build trust we must build the kind of character that the people around us can see on a regular basis. This takes diligent spiritual growth, that shapes you into the man or woman that God created you to be. The benefit of being trustworthy is healthy, happy relationships.

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Leadership Development

I’ve been thinking a lot about leadership development lately. As a leader, I think about how I can grow, learn and improve myself as a leader often. This desire to grow is something that God has put on my heart for quite a few years. Leadership is something that must be constantly growing and changing. The best leaders are never content to stay where they are at, they know that there is much more to learn, there are other people that are doing things better that they can learn from and there is more that can be done to impact the world.

Leadership development is really about the desire to improve. The drive to serve the people around you better, to make a difference and change lives, to improve your organization or your family is what defines a leader. Without the realization that you need to constantly be growing as a leader you won’t change much as a leader, and your influence will not go up. You will soon be passed by and be ineffective. You will hit a lid and not be able to take your organization or your family to the next level.

If you want your business, organization, church, department, workplace, family, marriage or really any important relationship to improve, you need to work on yourself. When you make changes in yourself you can have more influence on the people around you. You must be careful about your motives in all of this as well. If you are wanting to grow as a leader to gain power, position, money, or recognition, then your influence will be short lived. People can see through that quickly and you can lose influence.

Every year I work on a personal growth plan for myself. I think about what areas I struggle in and how I can make improvements there. I look at my areas of strength and how I can get even better in those areas. I think about people I can learn from, books I can read, conferences I can go to or classes I can take.

Currently I am working with a team of people at NewPointe Community Church on a Leadership Experience, this experience will focus on competency based development, working to improve peoples competencies in 7 areas. We came up with these 7 after some extensive surveys and interviews. Our initial target group is people that are leading or have led small groups. These competencies are transferable in helping people improve at work and at home as a leader.

Our goal in this project is to equip men and women to lead better in all areas of their lives. People that go through his experience can increase their influence and help make a difference in their homes and communities. We will be launching a test group in early 2010 and hope to offer this to several groups of 12-15 people later next year. If you want to know more about this leadership development project please contact me at NewPointe Community Church.