"Do not associate with a man given to anger; or go with a hot-tempered man," Proverbs 22:24 (NASB)
Too often we allow ourselves or others to experience continued abuse because of what we believe the Bible says. Yes, the Bible says to live at peace with everyone (Romans 12:18), to treat others as you wish to be treated (Luke 6:31), to be kind, compassionate, and forgiving (Ephesians 4:32), and to humbly value others above yourselves (Philippians 1:3). The Bible also says, "He who goes about as a slanderer reveals secrets, therefore do not associate with a gossip." Proverbs 20:19 (NASB)
Loving people doesn't mean allowing abuse, embracing bad behavior, or compromising values.
"But actually, I wrote to you not to associate with any so-called brother if he should be an immoral person, or covetous, or an idolater, or a reviler, or a drunkard, or a swindler--not even to eat with such a one. For what have I to do with judging outsiders? Do you not judge those who are inside the church? But those who are outside, God judges. Remove the wicked man from among yourselves." 1 Corinthians 5:11-13 (NASB)
When a person claiming Christianity persists in immorality, selfishness, hostility, substance abuse*, gossip, or dishonesty, disassociate yourself for the sake of your reputation and possibly your safety.
Do we forgive people who abuse? Absolutely. Do we still care about them? Definitely! Do we maintain close relationships with such people? No. How could we? If we are on a path that takes us ever closer to Christ, and those people are walking away from Him, we obviously won't be traveling together.
*Professional help is readily available for people with addictions.
Celebrate Recovery
National Drug Helpline 1-888-633-3239
Friday, March 22, 2019
Thursday, March 14, 2019
Love Covers
"Above all, keep fervent in your love for one another, because love covers a multitude of sins." 1 Peter 4:8 (NASB)
I used to understand love covering a multitude of sin as: if I love you, I can easily overlook your transgressions. Still true, but I have experienced another meaning as well: when YOU love ME, I can easily overlook your transgressions. In fact, when I know you love me, your minor infractions are less likely to seem like transgressions. And if you do transgress, it will break my heart but won't make me hate you.
Love is about relationships, and while the nature of sin is to damage relationships, love is about building and restoring them.
My closest friends can walk into my kitchen and get a soda pop out of the fridge or make a cup of coffee or hot chocolate just like my family can and I won't think twice about it, because we have established that kind of relationship. If a stranger walked into my home and helped himself, I would put up a fight.
Love covering sin should never be an excuse for allowing laws to be broken, abuse to continue, boundaries to be violated, or someone's bad behavior to become your temptation. More about that here. In fact, if we're motivated by love, we are more likely to extend the benefit of the doubt, and less likely to behave offensively in the first place.
"Hatred stirs up dissension, but love covers over all wrongs." Proverbs 10:12 (NIV)
Is there enough love in your heart that you can easily forgive when someone offends you? Is there enough love in your life that someone can easily forgive you when you slip up?
I used to understand love covering a multitude of sin as: if I love you, I can easily overlook your transgressions. Still true, but I have experienced another meaning as well: when YOU love ME, I can easily overlook your transgressions. In fact, when I know you love me, your minor infractions are less likely to seem like transgressions. And if you do transgress, it will break my heart but won't make me hate you.
Love is about relationships, and while the nature of sin is to damage relationships, love is about building and restoring them.
My closest friends can walk into my kitchen and get a soda pop out of the fridge or make a cup of coffee or hot chocolate just like my family can and I won't think twice about it, because we have established that kind of relationship. If a stranger walked into my home and helped himself, I would put up a fight.
Love covering sin should never be an excuse for allowing laws to be broken, abuse to continue, boundaries to be violated, or someone's bad behavior to become your temptation. More about that here. In fact, if we're motivated by love, we are more likely to extend the benefit of the doubt, and less likely to behave offensively in the first place.
"Hatred stirs up dissension, but love covers over all wrongs." Proverbs 10:12 (NIV)
Is there enough love in your heart that you can easily forgive when someone offends you? Is there enough love in your life that someone can easily forgive you when you slip up?
Friday, March 8, 2019
Up Your Game
"Leave the presence of a fool,
Or you will not discern words of knowledge." Proverbs 14:7 (NASB)
People who feel broken tend to group with other people who feel broken. They tell themselves they will get better together, but most often they just give each other permission to remain broken.
Health, healing, and wellness take ongoing effort, and honestly, we don't always want to do the work. But if you are truly committed to healing, learning, growing, changing, and improving, you're about to find out whether you're with the right friends.
They say if several crabs are in a bucket, they will pull each other down as they scramble over the top of each other in an effort to escape. People who do virtually the same thing are said to have a crab mentality.
If someone has tried to prevent or discourage you from reaching a goal, or has talked smack about you when you did hit your mark, you have experienced the receiving end of the crab mentality. Walk away from those people. That's not a refusal to forgive, it's not a judgmental attitude, it's biblical.
Maybe you ARE the crab. When you see someone soaring, are you the one grumbling that they're only flying because they don't know how to walk? Turn your mind around. We're all only human, and if someone else can succeed, then you can too. Humble yourself enough to learn from the winners how they won, and start working as hard as they did toward your own goals. What, you don't have any goals? Ask God what goals you should set, and get to work.
"Crabbiness" isn't just irritability, it's being nasty to people who are winning at life because that makes you feel insecure. Stop doing that.
"Therefore encourage one another, and build each other up..." 1 Thessalonians 5:11 (NIV)
Are you at the bottom of the bucket? Give those above you a hoist. Are you at the top? Offer a hand to someone below. And wherever you are, don't let anyone pull you down.
Or you will not discern words of knowledge." Proverbs 14:7 (NASB)
People who feel broken tend to group with other people who feel broken. They tell themselves they will get better together, but most often they just give each other permission to remain broken.
Health, healing, and wellness take ongoing effort, and honestly, we don't always want to do the work. But if you are truly committed to healing, learning, growing, changing, and improving, you're about to find out whether you're with the right friends.
They say if several crabs are in a bucket, they will pull each other down as they scramble over the top of each other in an effort to escape. People who do virtually the same thing are said to have a crab mentality.
If someone has tried to prevent or discourage you from reaching a goal, or has talked smack about you when you did hit your mark, you have experienced the receiving end of the crab mentality. Walk away from those people. That's not a refusal to forgive, it's not a judgmental attitude, it's biblical.
Maybe you ARE the crab. When you see someone soaring, are you the one grumbling that they're only flying because they don't know how to walk? Turn your mind around. We're all only human, and if someone else can succeed, then you can too. Humble yourself enough to learn from the winners how they won, and start working as hard as they did toward your own goals. What, you don't have any goals? Ask God what goals you should set, and get to work.
"Crabbiness" isn't just irritability, it's being nasty to people who are winning at life because that makes you feel insecure. Stop doing that.
"Therefore encourage one another, and build each other up..." 1 Thessalonians 5:11 (NIV)
Are you at the bottom of the bucket? Give those above you a hoist. Are you at the top? Offer a hand to someone below. And wherever you are, don't let anyone pull you down.
Friday, March 1, 2019
Choose Wisely
"He who walks with wise men will be wise, but the companion of fools will suffer harm." Proverbs 13:20 (NASB)
There is plenty of research indicating that human interaction is important to our well-being. There is also plenty of research indicating that we tend to take on the mindset of the people with whom we spend the most time.
As a young parent, I advised my children to be careful in choosing companions. If you are with someone who is caught shoplifting, you will get in trouble for shoplifting. No one will believe that you didn't know what your friend was doing, even if you truly didn't.
Things don't change much when you're older. The simplest things can impact us. My daughter developed a European accent during a two week visit to Germany, without her noticing. As a massage practitioner, I've gotten sick when the toxins from a client who was a smoker or drug user was absorbed through my hands.
The same thing happens in friendships: we absorb each other's attitudes and behaviors. If you want to clean up your language, find friends who don't swear. If you don't want to be abused, stay away from abusers. If you want to stay clean, avoid addicts. If you want to be a grateful person, don't hang around with complainers. If you want a good reputation, stick with respected and respectable people. If you want to be successful, learn from people who do the work instead of making excuses. If you want to be honest, stay with people who speak truth. If you want to be encouraged, listen to people who are positive.
People with low standards tend to attract others with equally low expectations of themselves, in order to give themselves permission to remain stagnant. Keep yourself out of that crab trap. More about the crab mentality: Up Your Game
"Do not be misled: bad company corrupts good character." 1 Corinthians 15:33 (NIV)
Nobody makes it alone. We need each other. Choose your friends wisely, because you will become like them. Are you choosing friends who inspire you to reach higher? Are you BEING a friend who inspires others to reach higher?
There is plenty of research indicating that human interaction is important to our well-being. There is also plenty of research indicating that we tend to take on the mindset of the people with whom we spend the most time.
As a young parent, I advised my children to be careful in choosing companions. If you are with someone who is caught shoplifting, you will get in trouble for shoplifting. No one will believe that you didn't know what your friend was doing, even if you truly didn't.
Things don't change much when you're older. The simplest things can impact us. My daughter developed a European accent during a two week visit to Germany, without her noticing. As a massage practitioner, I've gotten sick when the toxins from a client who was a smoker or drug user was absorbed through my hands.
The same thing happens in friendships: we absorb each other's attitudes and behaviors. If you want to clean up your language, find friends who don't swear. If you don't want to be abused, stay away from abusers. If you want to stay clean, avoid addicts. If you want to be a grateful person, don't hang around with complainers. If you want a good reputation, stick with respected and respectable people. If you want to be successful, learn from people who do the work instead of making excuses. If you want to be honest, stay with people who speak truth. If you want to be encouraged, listen to people who are positive.
People with low standards tend to attract others with equally low expectations of themselves, in order to give themselves permission to remain stagnant. Keep yourself out of that crab trap. More about the crab mentality: Up Your Game
"Do not be misled: bad company corrupts good character." 1 Corinthians 15:33 (NIV)
Nobody makes it alone. We need each other. Choose your friends wisely, because you will become like them. Are you choosing friends who inspire you to reach higher? Are you BEING a friend who inspires others to reach higher?
Friday, February 22, 2019
What Is a Christian Life?
"For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do." Ephesians 2:10 (NIV)
As a child, my perception of Christianity was about what God did for us: He made a perfect world and gave mankind freedom of choice. When humanity chose sin that corrupted the earth and separated us from God, He sent Jesus to take the death penalty for our sin so we could be friends with God again, and go to heaven when we die.
As I grew up, my comprehension expanded to include what God gives to us: not just material provisions, but intangibles such as hope and peace. I learned to pray, not just asking for what I wanted (please give me a great day) but what I needed (please give me grace when I have a not-so-great day).
Still I wondered how Christianity was supposed to work. If you follow the rules, God gives you extra things? I didn't see that in real life. There were Christians who prayed but still got sick and died. People who sang in the choir still cheated in their marriages. Sweet old ladies who taught Sunday school for decades still had bills they couldn't pay. Besides, I knew many people who didn't believe in God but were kind, generous, well-off.
As I continued to search for understanding, I found that a Christian life isn't limited to what God does for me or gives to me, but how He works through me. I started praying, "God, tell me what to do today and I'll do it." He directed. I followed. That was when I began to see circumstances change and miracles happen, not just for myself but for people around me, as a result of God using me.
"I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me." Galatians 2:20 (NIV)
Have you moved beyond accepting what God has done for you, and receiving what God has given to you, into allowing Him to work through you?
As a child, my perception of Christianity was about what God did for us: He made a perfect world and gave mankind freedom of choice. When humanity chose sin that corrupted the earth and separated us from God, He sent Jesus to take the death penalty for our sin so we could be friends with God again, and go to heaven when we die.
As I grew up, my comprehension expanded to include what God gives to us: not just material provisions, but intangibles such as hope and peace. I learned to pray, not just asking for what I wanted (please give me a great day) but what I needed (please give me grace when I have a not-so-great day).
Still I wondered how Christianity was supposed to work. If you follow the rules, God gives you extra things? I didn't see that in real life. There were Christians who prayed but still got sick and died. People who sang in the choir still cheated in their marriages. Sweet old ladies who taught Sunday school for decades still had bills they couldn't pay. Besides, I knew many people who didn't believe in God but were kind, generous, well-off.
As I continued to search for understanding, I found that a Christian life isn't limited to what God does for me or gives to me, but how He works through me. I started praying, "God, tell me what to do today and I'll do it." He directed. I followed. That was when I began to see circumstances change and miracles happen, not just for myself but for people around me, as a result of God using me.
"I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me." Galatians 2:20 (NIV)
Have you moved beyond accepting what God has done for you, and receiving what God has given to you, into allowing Him to work through you?
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