Facing the Challenge of the Christian Journey

There are lessons we can take from facing extreme challenges. We may enjoy backpacking, kayaking, skydiving, or we may just enjoy seeing others participate in these challenges on survival reality shows, but the most extreme challenge we can take is to walk the Christian life. We watch these television shows or read about others facing the challenges of nature, and we think, “I can do that.” Many of us think that, but few of us would ever try – only five percent of visitors to the Grand Canyon, for example, ever descend below the rim.. Like the tiny percentage of people who ever go below the rim of the Grand Canyon, very few who look into God’s word find the will power to actually implement it.

Pressing Toward Our Goal
In James 1:22, James calls on us to be active in God’s word, and he says we fool ourselves if we study that word without becoming involved. We cannot be sideline observers in our spirituality. James says we must be workers of God’s word to receive God’s blessing. Also, in Matthew 7:13, Jesus calls on us to enter into salvation through the narrow, difficult gate. He illustrates destruction as the easy path. Sadly, in verse 21, Jesus observes that not all who call upon God’s name will enter into His kingdom. Rather, it will be those who commit to His will. We have to meet the challenge of participation to be blessed in God’s eyes.

Once our Christian journey begins, we have to understand the journey may be longer than we anticipate. We may begin our walk with great enthusiasm and confidence, but time and trials can cause us to question our resolve. When we face a challenge, stopping and quitting is not an option. Once you’re at the bottom of the Grand Canyon, you have to continue the journey to get back out. Luke 14:28 records Jesus talking about crucifying self to follow Him, and He encourages His listeners and us to count the cost of a great endeavor. He advocated preparedness. In Luke 9:62, we see a few examples of individuals willing to sacrifice self to follow Jesus. We have to be willing to finish what we started, never giving up until we reach the goal.

During this difficult journey, great benefit can be found in rest and refreshment. In Acts 2, the early church comes together for the purpose of encouraging and restoring one another. Verse 46 records this occurring daily, assembling to worship and to build each other back up. In Acts 4:23-24, persecuted disciples come to fellow Christians for encouragement in fellowship and prayer. Do we value the times we come together? Our times of worship and fellowship are not burdensome. It is a time to benefit from being in the presence of our brethren and our Lord.

We come together because we will not complete this journey by ourselves. We need each other. When we are on a long journey, we often share resources and provisions. We help those with whom we were journeying. We help keep each other on the right path, preventing each other from trailing off. In Hebrews 12, the author writes about running our race of faith, pressing on to a goal, laying aside unnecessary burdens. In verse 12, he encourages us to lift one another up, living peaceably with each other, and watching over each other. We need each other, and we need to be willing to ask for help when we need it.

Rejoicing In Our Goal
Always, the completion of our efforts will bring great joy. Sometimes, we enter into a task, and we think we will never finish. When we finish though, when we reach our destination, we have an unparalleled sense of accomplishment. Writing form prison in Philippians 3:12, Paul writes about his efforts pressing on, working toward the goal before him while leaving behind those things that might hold him back. Paul is looking toward a great joy waiting for him. In I Peter 4:12, Peter speaks of fiery challenges we may face in our journey, that these trials help prove us, help shape us. Just as Christ suffered, we may suffer, but we are made better through endurance.

Will we have the same stamina and endurance demonstrated by Jesus and by Paul? Hebrews 2:2 calls Jesus the author of our faith. He has cut the path for us, but it is not always an easy one. It is a path for which we must be committed and prepared. We must rely on one another, and we have to stay focused on the joy promised at its end. Jesus finished His work. We can follow His lead, walk after His footsteps, and enter into the home He has prepared for us.

lesson by Tim Smelser

Elijah & Discouragement

It’s a common phrase: “I am just so discouraged.” None of us are strangers to discouragement in our lives. The problem is when that discouragement leads to despair and depressions, leading us into a cycle where we grow content in our malcontent. Elijah, in I Kings 19:1-19, experiences a despair with which we may be able to relate. These events come after Elijah’s triumph with God over the Baal priests upon Mt. Carmel, and he immediately finds himself running for his life. In the context of this great event, the king and queen of his land turn against him and seek to end his life.

Elijah has had enough. He calls for his own death, but an angel visits him, bidding him to eat. The angel strengthens him, and he travels to Mt. Horeb where he pleads his case to Jehovah God. He voices his despair, and God reveals Himself to His prophet in the quiet stillness of the mountain. This quiet God reassures Elijah that he is not alone. God is with Him and seven thousand remain unfaithful to Baal. From here, Elijah finds Elisha and returns to his work. When discouraged, we can look to this story. We can see how discouragement works its way into Elijah’s life, and take heart that we too can overcome despair.

Causes of Discouragement
Elijah feels the strain of trying to positively influence and ungodly nation. He feels the strain of being outnumbered by his opponent. He feels the stress of national leaders turned against him. He feels alone as we do at times. We grow distraught over the influence we think we don’t have. We feel the strain of those who we feel should be more faithful. We sometimes feel all have turned against us. Like Elijah, our emotional stress can pull us down.

Remember, in I Kings 18, Elijah is outrunning a murderous king in a chariot. He later runs from Jezebel and runs a day’s journey into the wilderness. He collapses when he can go no further. His physical exhaustion brings him to despair. We are always running. We are always wearing ourselves out. We over-commit and run ourselves into the ground, and we can no longer give our best to our families or our God. Even Jesus would take time from His ministry for meditation and reflection. He takes time to be still, to pray, and to focus on God.

Great success can also lead to great despair. Remember how Elijah overcomes the priests of Ball in I Kings 18, how the people shout praises to Jehovah after that triumph. He seems to feel a personal obligation to maintain that momentum, but, too often, when we reach a plateau, there is no direction left but down. We seek rewards, promotions, and recognition, but these same accolades can pull us down again once they are absent.

The Results of Discouragement
Because of his experiences, Elijah personally isolates himself, even leaving his personal servant behind. He was facing his discouragement alone. Too often, we do the same. We don’t want others to talk to us, encourage us, or try to help us. In Genesis 2:18, God states, “It is not good for man to be alone.” We are created as social creatures, and it does us no good to isolate ourselves when down.

In I Kings 19, Elijah loses perspective as a result of his depression. More than once, Elijah cries to God that he is the only one. Proverbs 23:7 claims that the thoughts of our hearts define us. Judas experiences a similar progression of despair after betraying Jesus, and, in Matthew 27:3, Judas repents of his betrayal. His story, though, ends in suicide. Judas is unable to overcome the distraught his actions bring about. We cannot allow such discouragement to so distort our perspective.

Discouragement can also lead us to focus solely on ourselves. Philippians 2 encourages us to liken our minds to Christ, who focused on others before self. Elijah centers his despair around himself. Much later, Jonah will demonstrate an unhealthy fixation

Cures for Discouragement
In I Kings 19:5, God tells Elijah to get up. He encourages Elijah and us to take positive action. A small move in the right direction can turn things around. Just taking that action can set us again on the right path. Get up, take a shower, have lunch with someone, go to a Bible study. The smallest nudge can help us regain momentum.

Additionally, God pushes Elijah to mature. God demonstrates to him that great things do not always come from cataclysmic events. God is not in the storm or in the earthquake here. God reminds Elijah where to focus and in whom his hope should be placed. In I Corinthians 3, Paul chides the congregation to whom the letter is addressed, for being spiritually immature. Hebrews 5 makes a similar statement, reminding us that there is a reasonable time in which we should be spiritually growing up. Spiritually maturity helps us overcome discouragement.

Finally, God tells Elijah to equip himself, to get to work. God gives Elijah those to help and those who would help Him. There are times when we need to change our minds. Romans 12 encourages us to transform ourselves, starting with our minds. We may need to admit we need help, and we may find encouragement in encouraging others. Elijah would mentor Elisha as we can help others draw closer to God. I Peter 1:13 tells us to prepare our minds for action, setting our minds on God’s grace.

Conclusion
Discouragement is a part of life. We will be disappointed. We will feel upset at times. This life cannot fulfill our every hope and need. People will let us down. Leaders will let us down. We will let ourselves down. We look to something better, though. God gives us reason to hope and trust in Him. Romans 8:31 reminds us that God can deliver us against any power of this world. Verse 35 asks who can separate us from God, and Paul concludes that nothing can come between us and the love of our Father. We may be faced with despair, but we have hope in Him who delivers us from this world.

lesson by Tim Smelser

Am I a Liar?

Calling someone a liar is an accusation with serious implications. It is not a charge we deal with casually. Whether a child or an adult, liar borders upon being a dirty word in our society. It is not a term to be thrown around casually or lightly because of the light cast upon the character of one accused of lying. To accuse one of lying is to accuse of being knowingly misleading, confusing, and deceptive.

The concept of lying is addressed in the New Testament roughly thirty-five times. Titus 1 and John 8 refer to God and Satan lying. Titus 1:1 begins Paul’s letter to Titus, and he speaks of the truth in God and the inability of God to lie. He calls lying something impossible to God, inconsistent with His character – an important fact if we are to trust and believe in God’s promises. In contrast, John 8:31 records Jesus speaking of the freedom found in God’s truth, and, beginning in verse 43, Jesus typifies Satan through lying, calling him the father of falsehood.

Darkness and Light
John uses the expression lie several times in his books, and there are no gray areas in the context in which John uses the term. In I John 1:5, John discusses the nature of God’s light, accusing us of being liars if we claim to follow him while remaining in darkness. Returning to John 8:12, Jesus refers to Himself as the light of the world, preventing us from walking in darkness. He will repeat this sentence when healing a blind man.

When we follow Jesus, we walk in the light of life. In I John 2:9, however, points out that hatred sets us in darkness, again making us liars if we claim to follow Christ. In verse 5, we are liars if we claim to know CHrist without heeding His commandments. Chapter 1:6, 2:4, 2:9, 2:22, 4:20 – these verses and more define us as liars when we contradict ourselves and deny Christ in our lives.

Are You a Liar?
Returning to our opening, the accusation of liar is a strong one, but John lays out a case that we do so when we claim to be a Christian while practicing sin; when we say we love Jesus but ignore His commandments; when we say we love God but harbor hatred in our lives. When we do these things, we live in darkness, and we lie to ourselves when we convince ourselves we walk in light.

In Colossians 3:19 speaks of the treatment of wives by husbands. Similar sentiments are expressed in Ephesians 5. Colossians 3:18 and Titus 2 discuss the attitude wives should have toward husbands. Colossians 3:20 and Ephesians 6:1 speak to the relationship between children and parents. Are we practicing these things, or are we guilty of being liars?

Consider Ephesians 4:25 that tells us to put away all falsehoods, speaking only truth, keeping anger from leading us into sin. He encourages us not to steal from each other in any way or allow bitterness or corruption come forth from us. Paul is focusing on the goodness we should be practicing if we are truthful in our walking as Christians. What do our actions proclaim in comparison to the words we say.

Practicing More Than Theory
Christianity is more than a set of noble ideals. It should be bringing drastic changes in our lives as Romans 12:1-2 calls on us to be transformed. Ephesians 4:17-24, predicating the qualities we just examined, calls on us to avoid darkening of understanding, callousing our consciences, avoiding greed – we do not learn these things in Christ. These are things we should put away worldliness to assume a mantle of godliness. This is why we need to be concerned with our own honest assessment of who we are.

Christianity should be aspiring us to greater goals than those of this world. In Colossians 3:1, Paul encourages us to seek those things above, setting our mind on those promises. We have died to this world, and, staring in verse 12, we see qualities we should emulate – love, kindness, forgiveness, mercy. Being a CHristian gives us a new set of goals and new things to work on in our lives.

Finally, in Revelation 21:7, John sees the holy city, a dwelling place where there is no more pain and no more crying. He hears God say that he who overcomes will inherit all these things, but that even liars will have no part in His peace. Our actions should be consistent with the One we claim to follow. Are we lying to one another? Do we think we can lie to God? Are we lying to ourselves? James 1:22 warns us against deceiving ourselves in our service to God. If we are honest with ourselves, we will continually work harder to set our eyes on the things above, allowing His word to change us in everything we say and do.

lesson by Tim Smelser

You Are a Light to the World

Back in June of this year, author, marketing expert, and blogger Seth Godin wrote what is perhaps one of my favorite blog posts of all times. Here it is:

When you love the work you do and the people you do it with, you matter.

When you are so gracious and generous and aware that you think of other people before yourself, you matter.

When you leave the world a better place than you found it, you matter.

When you continue to raise the bar on what you do and how you do it, you matter.

When you teach and forgive and teach more before you rush to judge and demean, you matter.

When you touch the people in your life through your actions (and your words), you matter.

When kids grow up wanting to be you, you matter.

When you see the world as it is, but insist on making it more like it could be, you matter.

When you inspire a Nobel prize winner or a slum dweller, you matter.

When the room brightens when you walk in, you matter.

And when the legacy you leave behind lasts for hours, days or a lifetime, you matter.

It’s a simple message that I think we forget all to often – that we do, in fact, matter. We watch and read inspirational stories, fiction and nonfiction, of the huge events being influenced be the actions of a single individual. Then we sit at home and say, “That could never be me.” What we forget, though, is that it doesn’t matter that we may never be the one to turn the tide in a war, discover a cure for a terrible disease, save the planet from an asteroid.

The simple fact is, we leave footprints behind us wherever we go. We personally touch countless lives every day. Our words and our actions spread like ripples until we become the proverbial butterfly flapping its wings in Brazil, causing tornadoes in Texas. (If you don’t get that, you might want to read up on chaos theory mathematics and the butterfly effect.) Often, we don’t see our own effects on others, so we therefore assume it doesn’t exist. This leads us to conduct our lives as if it centers around ourselves, and we fail to look up and see how our choices impact others. Even if you don’t know it, you matter.

Being a Light to Others
As Christians, we should matter to the world the way Mr. Godin writes about. In Matthew 5:13, Jesus calls His disciples to be as salt, improving the flavor of the world around us. He calls us to be as a city on a hill, and I fear we have come to interpret this today as being loftier, more high-minded, more self-righteous than those around us; but what did a city on a hill represent to those living in Jesus’ day? That city was a place of refuge. It was safety and reassurance. Jesus goes on to say our light should shine before others in the goodness we spread. Likewise, I Peter 3:15 records the apostle Peter writing that we should be ready to answer for the hope within us. How can anyone ask about our hope if we are not spreaders of hope?

The Love You Give
The last song recorded by the Beatles, aptly named The End, contains this closing lyric: "In the end the love you take is equal to the love you make." How are you and I creating love around us? Mr. Godin says we should love our work and love those with whom we work. In the case of a Christian, our work is spreading the gospel, and we work with everyone. In Matthew 22:37-40, Jesus says the greatest work we can fulfill is to love God and to love those around us. In John 13:35, He says that all will know us by the love we show, and I Corinthians 13:4-7 describes the love we should give.

Continuing with some of Mr. Godin’s related points, are we gracious and generous, putting others before self? Psalm 86:15 describes the God of whom we claim to be imitators as compassionate, gracious, long-suffering, abundant in mercy. Colossians 3:12-13 says we should wear kindness, mercy, humility, and forgiveness. Do we teach forgiveness over condemnation? Jesus forgave many we might have condemned had we been walking in the First Century. Would we have rebuked His empathy, His “bleeding heart?” Remember that Jesus calls us to be like lamp-stands in Matthew 5:15? To paraphrase Mr. Godin, does our loving and kind demeanor light up the room?

Striving for Excellence
Do people see us trying to improve the world around us, or do they hear nothing more than our complaints? Are we characterized by phrases like, “These kids today…,” or, “The problem with the world today…,” or griping and complaining about those who think differently than me? Do we fill our minds with the bile and vitriol of cable news and talk radio rather than filling our minds with the good things of Philippians 4:8-9. We can be a positive influence, encouraging those around us to do better. In Luke 13:20-21, Jesus likens His kingdom – that would be us – to leaven. What does leaven do? It spreads. It changes that which it touches. We can influence those around us for the better if we, as Gandhi might say, live the change we want to see.

Striving for excellence involves a certain amount of self examination as well. II Timothy 2:15 calls on us to give diligence in our work. This carries with it the idea of persistence or carefulness, walking circumspectly, borrowing from Ephesians 5:15. Even Paul, in Philippians 3:12-15, says he is continually pressing toward his goal, never assuming he has perfected himself. If we want to change the world for the better, we must start with ourselves.

Leaving the World a Better Place
This brings us to our last point – we are capable of leaving this world a better place. Again, we may not cause seismic events of global proportions, but we can improve the world in the small things we do. Like Christ, we can inspire the great or the small in the things we say and do. In John 3, He teaches a Jewish ruler and Pharisee named Nicodemus, and, a few chapters later in John 8:3-12, we see Jesus extending mercy to a humiliated adulteress, reiterating the statement about being a light to the world after this event.

As parents, as mentors, and as teachers, we can be the person who a child wants to be when they grow up. I remember, as a teenager, people like Marcus Boone, Ben Lanius, and Kevin Stockton were heroes to me. Whose hero are you? Are we an example of like that of Timothy in I Timothy 4:12 – an example in conduct, love, and faith? Someone looks up to you. What are you showing them? Your influence may last an hour, a month, or a lifetime, but that influence matters. As Heather Darling Cortes writes, “To the world you may be one person, but to one person you may be the world.


You Personally Matter to God
We matter to more than this world, however. We also matter to God. Have you ever taken verses like John 3:16 or Romans 5:10-11, substituting your name for the general nouns and pronouns? What about I Peter 5:6-7? Now, replace your name with someone else’s – perhaps your neighbor’s, a coworker’s, and family member’s. What happens if you read into those verses someone with whom you feel enmity? Do you now see them in a different light? How should that level of personalization affect your relationship with God and with others?

You matter. I matter. We matter in the ways we influence the world around us, and we matter to a God who invites us into His tender mercies. In the context of our conduct toward enemies, Jesus calls on us to show mercy like God’s in Luke 6:36. How can we, who long for God’s mercy, light, and forgiveness, neglect shining our light, showing mercy to others, teaching and demonstrating forgiveness? In Matthew 25:40, Jesus says He feels our compassion, our kindness, and our mercy when we demonstrate it to the most humble of individuals. Let us resolve to use the influence we do have in this world to be a force of goodness, knowing that we matter to others and to our Lord, and showing others that they matter just as much.

lesson by Robert Smelser