Think About It

What is religion?   Typically when we think about religion we conjure up images of church worship or doing religious acts.   While there is value in worshiping and working together as a church, religion is more than this.   When James was teaching the early church what they needed to do to be pleasing to God he noted, “ If anyone thinks himself to be religious, and yet does not bridle his tongue but deceives his own heart, this man’s religion is worthless.   Pure and undefiled religion in the sight of our God and Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world.” (James 1:26-27).   Religion isn’t just something we do on Sundays, it is the way we live each and every day of our lives. In describing religion, the Bible specifically mentions three things: 1.   Watch our language .   What we talk about and how we talk about it defines our religio...

          Have you noticed that there is a lot of blame being handed out these days, but have you also noticed that we are typically short on assessing personal accountability?  Folks, we have a violence problem in our society and we seem to be helpless in stopping it – or are we?  No, the changes won’t come overnight, but we have to do something.  Maybe this will help.  Let’s stop blaming peripheral people/issues and start focusing on personal accountability.  It is easy to blame violence on “guns” but no firearm has ever loaded itself and started firing!  It is convenient to blame politicians, but I don’t know of a leader who has actually pulled a trigger and killed multiple people.  (By the way – this cuts both ways ... both those who are accused of being soft on gun laws and those who have been accused of not effectively policing their own neighborhoods.)  It is popular to blame videogames, but people are no...

I wish I could say that it is easy to like everyone, but we all know that isn’t true.   There are some people who just aren’t very likable and others hold beliefs that are in such conflict with ours that we find it hard to be civil to each other.   Some people are abusive to us and others belittle those things we hold dear.   Let’s face it, there are just some people we don’t like!   Okay, now that we have established this fact, what do we do with it?   Sure there are people with whom we are going to have issues, does that mean that we have the ability to treat them any different than others – even when we can prove that we are right and they are wrong?   Can we justify treating them with any less dignity than those we respect?   If there ever was a person who was mistreated, it was Jesus.   People bad-mouthed Him, lied about Him, called Him bad names – and they even killed Him.   Yet, He set the standard for treating others with r...

Have you noticed that it is easy for Christians to claim that the world is “persecuting” us?  We complain that we are being unjustly targeted for oppression and ridicule.  Typically, when we make this claim we do so stating that the cause is unfounded and based on our belief that those who do it do so because they just don’t like us or the stands we have taken.  While I am sure that that does happen, I also have to believe that sometimes we are our own worst enemies.  There are times when we bring some of the criticism on ourselves because we fail to act like the people we have been called to be.  If we are being treated unfairly because of the bias of unbelievers that is one thing, but when our misbehavior creates our own misery, that is something altogether different!           When Paul instructed his protégé about what to teach those in his congregation he wrote, “ Likewise urge the young men to be sensibl...

I was in a training not long ago that dealt with women in the workplace.  As you might expect there were times when the discussion focused on men and women working together and soon there was the inevitable discussion as to how people should handle situations when men and women find themselves working alone together.  There is a philosophy that advocates we should never put ourselves in a situation where are meeting or working alone with a member of the opposite sex alone, but is that really the best answer?  The class was being conducted by Brenda Dietzman, who offered some insightful thoughts on the subject.  After making the point that individual offensive behavior should never be tolerated, she said that we should not withdraw from those of the opposite sex just because of a fear of being accused of inappropriate behavior.  She went on to explain that when we alienate anyone merely based on the potential for the perception of inappropriate behavior we take ...

Are we feeling overwhelmed?   Do we feel like everything around us is going crazy and there is nothing we can do about it?   Do we ever wonder how anything else can go wrong – and then live in fear that it will?   At some point most of us feel like the world is beating us up and we really don’t know what to do about it.   We feel weak, we feel powerless, we just don’t know where to turn.   So, what can we do? These types of feelings can be devastating and I wish I had a quick, foolproof program; but about the best I can do is make a few suggestions: 1.   Do your best to slow down your world .   Take deep breathes when you feel anxious.   Be deliberate when making decisions.   Delay insignificant issues to focus on the important ones. 2.   Find someone to talk with .   We don’t have to deal with life on our own.   There are good people who care and who are willing to work with you.   When looking for someone to help,...

Most of us learn how to talk at an early age – that isn’t the problem – the issue is learning how to communicate effectively.   Our problem isn’t grasping the vocabulary that has the ability to convey meaning, it is controlling our emotion to correctly convey it appropriately.   Some of us are too leery to speak our minds because we are afraid of hurting someone else’s feelings.   Others are too caustic in our approach to care about other people’s feelings.   Isn’t it interesting that even though it is something we do for many years, we tend to struggle with communication. The other day I was sitting in a communication class when I heard some really good advice – say what you mean, mean what you say; but never say it in a mean way.   Our words should be truthful, full of value and delivered in such a way that others know that we care about them.   We don’t water-down important concepts, we don’t overwhelm other people – we communicate what we need to say...