Think About It

One of the most incredible passages of the Bible is found in I John 4:7-9: “Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love. By this the love of God was manifested in us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world so that we might live through Him.” What a wonderful reminder of how much God cares about us and was willing to do for us. Each Christian can find eternal hope in this passage. While this is wonderful, we must be cautious that we don’t misrepresent what this says – and doesn’t say. Yes, God is love and loved us enough to save us from our sins; however, this doesn’t mean that everyone will automatically receive forgiveness and salvation. You see, the same God of love is also the God of accountability and the God of vengeance. II Corinthians 4:10 reminds us, “For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may...

I was reading from the Psalms the other day and came across a statement that almost stopped me in my tracks. As David reflected on life he warned, “Do not trust in princes, in mortal man, in whom there is no salvation. His spirit departs, he returns to the earth; in that very day his thoughts perish.” (Psalm 146:3-4). This passage could not come at a better time for me. During this election year it is easy to choose up sides for someone to “save our nation”. Whether we believe the status quo is the way to go or it is time for (another) change, there are a lot of people putting faith in what is going to happen in November. Yet, the Scriptures teach us that no one person (or party) is going to lead us to the “good life”. If this isn’t enough, history teaches us that there is a long line of people who have lived, lead, died and been forgotten. At best, some of their quips and quotes have been saved for posterity; but in all honesty their words and their actions followed them into ...

As I look back on my life, I realize how much I have changed. When I think about some of the attitudes I had a college student I see how my personality, background and age contributed to beliefs I no longer hold. Led by the petulance of youth, biases bred by my environment and my own personal views; I said, did and believed things that I have come to disavow. As I look back on myself from decades ago, I can do a couple things – I can be frozen by the limitations of the person I used to be or I can build on who I have become to create a better individual in the future. I share this self-assessment with you to encourage you to grow and develop on your own, but also as a challenge to us to view today’s world with less criticism. When it comes to many of the social issues we face, we are not where we should be; however, we are a lot closer to it than where we were decades ago. Sometimes it might not feel like it, but when we analyze our development, we have made progress. It is eas...

I was listening to Jimmy Dean talking about his grandfather the other day. For those of you who might not remember, Jimmy Dean (yes, the sausage guy) was also a major entertainment star in his day. He had several hit songs and a successful television show. Yet, on this day, as he reflected back on his grandfather he was talking about character. Dean said that his grandfather probably never made more than $10,000 in any year of his life, but “his rows were the straightest and his fences was the tightest” of anyone he knew. For the farmers and ranchers out there, this comment probably needs no explanation, but for those who don’t have much of an agricultural background; suffice it to say that Dean’s grandfather was a quality guy. He had talent, he worked hard and he took his responsibilities seriously. Maybe, in modern language, we would say that he was a stand-up guy or simply, he had integrity. When our children and grandchildren reflect back on us, what will they say? Hopefu...

Have you noticed how easy it is to “hate” something? There are certain words we use in modern English that can’t really stand on our own and hate is one of those words. We can hate meatloaf … we can hate the Oakland Raiders … we can hate our hairdo … we can hate sin … we can hate a political leader … we can be prosecuted for a hate crime … we can even hate someone to the point of wanting them dead. Since we use the word in so many ways, we almost need to explain what we mean when we do use it. In fact, when we are tempted to use the word hate it might be better to use a synonym that helps us better define our intent. The other day I was reading a passage and came across another interesting aspect of hate, “The one who loves his brother abides in the Light and there is no cause for stumbling in him. But the one who hates his brother is in the darkness and walks in the darkness, and does not know where he is going because the darkness has blinded his eyes.” (I John 2:10-11). As I ...

Well, I think I am about to make everyone upset with me … so here goes: I don’t care if you watch the NFL or if you boycott all sporting events. I will not criticize you for voting for a Republican, Democrat, Independent or if you don’t vote at all. It doesn’t bother me if you drive an electric car or a Ford F350. As long as you follow the law and stand an appropriate distance away from people, it really doesn’t matter to me if you wear a mask or not. It doesn’t bother me if you utilize the public school system or educate your children in a different way. What does matter to me is whether or not you are a good person! With so many issues going on around us, I think it is easy to lose our focus on what is important. Sure, each of the preceding debates probably should be discussed, but at the end of the day, the single most important thing in our lives is whether we love people and are faithful to God. There is a lot of room for discussion on the myriad of issues that face our ...

In all honesty, I haven’t read much of what Malcolm Gladwell has written; however, I recently came across a couple of quotes from his book “Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking”. The first quote is, “The key to good decision making is not knowledge. It is understanding. We are swimming in the former. We are desperately lacking in the latter.”. In this simple observation, Gladwell captures a definition for the concept of wisdom. Facts are everywhere. Data is easily obtained. Yet, the key to being successful is synthesizing the raw data into useful ideas. Interestingly, this isn’t accurate in just the applied sciences, it is especially true in the social sciences as well. We need information, but people who are true leaders are those who can translate it into applicable truth. Gladwell’s second observation is, “We have, as human beings, a storytelling problem. We’re a bit too quick to come up with explanations for things we don’t really have an explanation for.” (Now ...