Literary Styles in the Bible

A key to accurately interpreting Scripture is to consider what kind of genre the particular book or passage is written in. For instance, how we interpret the meaning behind the Psalms is different from how we might interpret something from II Chronicles. 


This is because the two books are written in completely different literary genres.

The Bible is a collection of many books telling one unified story, and these books are written in different styles. It’s a little like walking into a bookstore and seeing different categories of books such as history, biography, poetry, and non-fiction. When you peruse these different types of books, you will have different expectations as you read them.

The following genres are represented Scripture:

Narrative (comprises 43 percent of the Bible)

Poetry (comprises 33 percent of the Bible)

Discourse (comprises 24 percent of the Bible)

In the following video, the Bible Project explains why these particular genres are important and why God chose them to communicate the greatest story ever. Enjoy, study, and be changed.

5 Stages of Recovery When Toxic People Leave the Church

I have been working with church leaders for three decades on the issue of toxicity in the church. Toxic church members grieve the Holy Spirit with “bitterness, anger and wrath, shouting and slander” (Ephesians 4:30-31). 

They are gossipers, naysayers, bullies and generally negative people. You can count on them to gossip, spread rumors and disrupt the unity of the church.

They are the opposite of what God commanded of church members: “And be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving one another, just as God also forgave you in Christ” (Ephesians 4:32).

Pastors and other church leaders are often hesitant to deal with toxicity in the church. I get it. It’s just more conflict, confrontation and possible loss of members.

But here is the hard reality: The congregation will not move forward with toxic church members.

I will save the discussion for later on how to deal with toxicity in the church. For now, let’s look at what happens in a church when toxic members leave. Essentially, for the church, it becomes short and mid-term pain for longer-term gain.

1.  Stage One: Exodus. The church will definitely lose members. After all, it has already lost the toxic members. And it is more common than not for the toxic members to have a following of other members. They will likely leave too. Some of the followers are toxic themselves; others simply have not heard the full story.

2.  Stage Two: Questioning. The majority of church members typically are unaware of the conflict and strife caused by toxic members. So, when there is a point of confrontation and exodus of members, the quiet majority doesn’t fully comprehend what is taking place. Some are dealing with shock and grief; others simply have questions.

3.  Stage Three: Lull. During this stage, the congregation continues to deal with the shock of the conflict and departure. The members begin to feel a new reality in the church, and it will take them a while to adjust to it. I sometimes call this stage “adjustment apathy.” The good news is this stage is most often short-term.

4.  Stage Four: Healing. The toxicity is gone. Relationships begin to heal. Trust grows. Church leaders and members now have greater emotional resources to focus on others and to focus on their community.

5.  Stage Five: Recovery. The good news about this stage is that the period of recovery is usually a time of great opportunity for the church. I worked with a pastor in a church where the attendance dropped from (in round numbers) 400 to 300 as the church moved into stage one. But, by the time the congregation reached stage five, attendance was over 500. While numbers are not the ultimate measure for church health, they were indicative of a greater focus on the Great Commission and the community the church served.

Toxic church members were present in first-century churches. They are still present in 21st century churches. They are painful realities for pastors and other church leaders. Such is the bad news.

But the good news is what takes place when toxicity leaves the church. After a painful initial reaction, congregations often rebound and are healthier than they have been for a long time.

Source:   By Thom Rainer

Thom S. Rainer is the president and CEO of LifeWay Christian Resources (LifeWay.com). Among his greatest joys are his family: his wife Nellie Jo; three sons, Sam, Art, and Jess; and six grandchildren. He was founding dean of the Billy Graham School of Missions, Evangelism, and Church Growth at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. His many books include Surprising Insights from the Unchurched, The Unexpected Journey, and Breakout Churches.

This article originally appeared HERE. 

6 Ways to Know If You’ve Been Called By God

When called by God, following God’s call was one of the toughest things I ever had to do. And what made it especially hard is that the same questions kept coming up every few years until I’d settled them for good.

In college I sensed God calling me to care for the poor, hungry and oppressed in other nations. And after graduating, I went to do just that, first in Indonesia and later in the Dominican Republic. Case closed, right?

No, when Karen and I had three babies in the first five years of marriage, it got confusing. Yes, I had heard a call, but now I had new responsibilities and new opportunities to make money. I had to go back to God and pray about it all over again. What to do? It was a struggle.

How do you know you’re called by God?

How about you? How do you know if you’ve been called by God? The first thing I had to recognize was that we’re all called by God. Paul writes, encouraging everyone: “I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received” (Eph. 4:1). We are all called by God. I could run, but I couldn’t hide from that call.

Beyond that, I had the example of God calling people in Scripture. The conversation between Paul and Jesus as recounted in Acts was especially helpful. Paul shares the story with King Agrippa. He says, Jesus told me this: “I have appeared to you to appoint you as a servant and as a witness of what you have seen of me and what I will show you” (Acts 26:16).

It’s a simple sentence, but it has a lot to teach us about the calling of God. Specifically, we can see six aspects of a call that apply to us.

1. Revelation:   “I have appeared to you…” 

The principle of revelation is that Jesus has made himself known to you.

Have you had a revelation? Has Jesus made himself known to you? Think back to the first time you ever came to grips with the person of Jesus. I was about eight. I remember my mom sharing the story of how Jesus had been so cruelly tortured. In that moment, Jesus made himself known to me.

Jesus appeared to Paul in a dramatic fashion; to others of us he reveals himself in a more subtle way. We are accountable for the glimpse of Jesus which we have been given. This is the start of our relationship with him.

Bottom of Form

If you have not met the person of Jesus Christ, then you are missing God’s plan for your life. He may not be as dramatically obvious as he was with the apostle Paul, but He does desire to appear to you.

This prompts a question: Have you seen Jesus and responded to him?

2. Role:    “…to appoint you…” 

God made us with an inbuilt need for purpose. The principle of appointment is that Jesus wants to give you a role.

The Bible says that God is not willing that any should perish and he has enlisted us to make sure that they don’t. When an army recruit enlists, he is given a rank and a role. When Jesus appears to us, he not only does so to save us, but to save the world through us.

Dwight L. Moody said, “For years Jesus has been leading me where I never could have gone myself.” Where has he been leading you?

Many of us have never listened for or responded to Jesus’ appointment. And in the absence of information, we make assumptions about what we should be doing. Let me encourage you to block out time in your calendar just to pray and hear from God about his appointment.

What is the role that he has given to you?

3. Servanthood:  “…to appoint you as a servant…” 

The principle is that you are called first to be a servant.

What does Jesus appoint us to do? First, he calls us to learn the role of a servant. This may have been easier to learn in Jesus’ day when class distinctions and slave status were prevalent.

Too many Christians have never made Jesus Lord of their lives. He is their savior, but not their master. We have become a church of takers rather than servants.

Gen. William Booth, founder of the Salvation Army, said, “The greatness of a man’s power is the measure of his surrender.” Have you surrendered your house, your car, your dreams, your family to Jesus? Only after we take up His agenda can we receive His commission. If you’ve done so, then, with Paul, you’ve taken on the role of a servant.

Have you responded to His call to serve?

4. Witness: “…and as a witness…” 

God has also called you to be a witness.

A witness is one who testifies. We are called to testify to what we know of Jesus. We know, for example, that Jesus has given us the gift of eternal life. We know that he desires to give that same gift to everyone else. We testify to what we know.

Have we taken on the role of a witness? Are we bothered by the fact that so many in the world are struggling to find hope? Are we looking for ways to boldly give an account of what God is doing in our lives?

Where has he called you to be a witness?

5. Observation:  “…a witness of what you have seen of me…”

The principle of observation states that You can only witness to what you have seen of Jesus.

Some of us hide behind the excuse that “my faith is a personal thing,” when in fact, we haven’t seen enough of him to make an impact on us.

Growing up, I was anything but bold about my faith. I had kind of borrowed a relationship with Christ from my parents. So I didn’t have much boldness. I mostly fumbled with words when it came my time to share who Jesus was to me.

To be like him or to share him with others, we must first see him.

What have you seen of Jesus?

6. There’s More:  “a witness…of what I will show you” 

Your witness changes as Jesus progressively reveals himself.

Our testimony is like bread—it must be kept fresh. If allowed to grow old, its staleness becomes evident. Our walk with Jesus is a daily, ongoing thing.

Our testimony or witness of his power in our life should be continually updated as he continues to regenerate us and show new aspects of his character. He has promised to show more of himself as we walk with him.

The point here is that we must continually choose to walk in the right way and to grow in Christ, and as we do so, we have a fresh witness. We share with others our own ongoing experience.

People need to hear an immediacy and relevance in our witness. They know what day-old bread looks like. They don’t want crusty stuff, they want reality.

As you live your life, are you experiencing more of Jesus?

—————-

To sum up, we are all called. What Jesus gave Paul he gives to us all. None of us are second-class believers. He calls us to share what he’s given with a needy world. You have a call. Why not step into it?

Source:    By    Seth Barnes

           

I'm a work in process. I've found that the main thing one needs in a relationship with God is hunger to know Him and be in His presence. As for the rest of my life, Karen and I are going through a transition as three of our five children are leaving the nest, leaving us with our two youngest, two dogs & amp; a cat. One of our great consolations is the wonderful group of friends at AIM. They are truly the body of Christ to us. Life here is always an adventure and I wouldn't have it any other way!

This article originally appeared here.

What is your life founded upon?

 “Why do you call me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do what I say?”                                            Luke 6:46 NIV

Jesus told a story of two men who built a house. The wise one built his house on solid rock; the foolish one built his on sand. When a storm hit both houses, only the wise man’s house was left standing. Now, Jesus wasn’t comparing wisdom with foolishness, because we’re all apt to be wise at times and foolish at others.

And He didn’t say the house that survived was a believer’s house while the one that was destroyed belonged to an unbeliever, though that’s implied. He was comparing the two foundations (See Mt 7:24-27).

So, what is your life founded upon?

When things get bad; when your back is against the wall; when your survival is on the line; when you’ve used up your last ounce of strength—what is it that gets you through?

Certainly not your wisdom or your church affiliation. Faithful believers sometimes flounder in the midst of life’s storms: an abusive relationship, a financial collapse, an unfaithful partner, an irreversible loss, the illness of a child, psychological and physical disability, etc. Jesus’ point was this: When the storms of life come, the only way to get through them is to do what He says!

Because God always honors His Word, your obedience aligns you with His Word, His will, and His power to act on your behalf.

As you walk in obedience God will enable you to come through this storm, no matter how long and hard it rages.

Will YOU DO what seems beneath YOU?

LUKE 16:10
“ ¹⁰ Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much, and whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much.”

Word Study: YHWH - "LORD"

For thousands of years, God’s people have prayed a prayer of confession called the Shema. Among its well-known lines is this one: 
“Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might (Dt 6:4-5).

You may have seen these lines in writing and wondered why “LORD” is written in all capital letters. The following video seeks to answer this question.

That name is God’s personal name; this is how God introduced Himself to Moses in the third chapter of Exodus. God is wanting to free His people from Egyptian enslavement and Moses asks God what name he should use when people ask who is doing this miraculous rescue. God commands Moses to tell them that “EHYEH” has sent him. EHYEH means “I will be” and connotes the idea that God is self-sufficient and lacking in nothing. It would be pretty weird, though, for Moses to go to people and say, “I will be” so God also tells Moses to use the name of “YAHWEH”, which communicates that this is the God of their ancestors and means “He will be”.

YAHWEH appears over 6,500 times in the Hebrew Old Testament.

Over time as the people of God read Scripture, they took to using the name “Adonai” instead of “YAHWEH.” Adonai simply means “Lord” (not the lower case letters) and the use of this term has been used for centuries right up to our modern time. Ancient scribes were so concerned about not spelling out YAHWEH, that they developed a unique scribal reminder to ensure that this would not happen. They would take out the vowels within YAHWEH and insert the vowels from ADONAI thereby producing the name YAHOWAH.

 This is how the term JEHOVAH became prominent in our English versions of scripture. 

Watch the video to learn more interesting facts about the name of God.

Rest In Peace John McCain!

 John McCain, who shed a playboy image in his youth to become a fighter pilot, revered prisoner of war and both an independent voice in the Republican Party and its 2008 presidential nominee, died on Saturday, little more than a year after he was told he had brain cancer. He was 81.

McCain’s office said in a statement "Senator John Sidney McCain III died at 4:28 p.m. on August 25, 2018." He announced on July 19, 2017, that he had been diagnosed with a glioblastoma, an aggressive type of brain tumor. On Friday his family announced he was discontinuing treatment.

"With the Senator when he passed were his wife Cindy and their family. At his death, he had served the United States of America faithfully for sixty years," McCain's office said in the statement.

His daughter, Meghan McCain, said in a statement that "I was with my father at his end, as he was with me at my beginning."

"All that I am is thanks to him. Now that he is gone, the task of my lifetime is to live up to his example, his expectations, and his love,” she said.

McCain’s wife, Cindy McCain, tweeted: “My heart is broken. I am so lucky to have lived the adventure of loving this incredible man for 38 years. He passed the way he lived, on his own terms, surrounded by the people he loved.” She said he died in "the place he loved best."

In his 36 years in Congress, McCain became one of the country's most respected and influential politicians, challenging his fellow lawmakers to reach across the aisle for the good of the country, and often sparring with reporters with a biting if self-deprecating wit.

On a variety of issues — torture, immigration, campaign finance, the Iraq War — McCain was often known as the moral center of the Senate and of the Republican Party.

Last year, in his last act of defiance, McCain returned to the Capitol less than a week after his cancer was diagnosed to cast his vote on the Republican effort to repeal the Affordable Care Act — the biggest legislative achievement of President Barack Obama, the man who defeated him in the 2008 election.

McCain first voted in favor of debating the bill, giving his fellow Republicans hope that their long-sought goal of repealing Obamacare was in sight. McCain then dashed those hopes by casting the decisive vote against repeal.

Before the vote, McCain denounced the rise of partisanship in a heartfelt speech from the Senate floor on July 25, 2017.

"Why don’t we try the old way of legislating in the Senate, the way our rules and customs encourage us to act?" McCain said. "Merely preventing your political opponents from doing what they want isn’t the most inspiring work."

But in recent months, the man who had been a mainstay on Capitol Hill for more than three decades was noticeably absent.

He missed a White House ceremony on Dec. 12, 2017, in which President Donald Trump signed the annual defense bill into law — one of McCain's signature achievements.

A statement issued the following day by the senator's office said he was at the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Maryland receiving treatment for the "normal side effects of his ongoing cancer therapy" and looked forward to returning to work as soon as possible.

McCain's life was punctuated by wild highs and lows, from the horrific conditions he endured for nearly 2,000 days as a prisoner of war to subsequent professional successes that brought him to the forefront of American politics.

Over the course of his career he rallied against pork-barrel spending and went against his own party's president, George W. Bush, on strategy for the Iraq war. He earned a reputation as a party maverick by advocating campaign finance reform, lending his name to the bipartisan McCain-Feingold Act of 2002, and supporting overhauling the nation's immigration system over the years.

But the pinnacle of his political career came in 2008, when he clinched the Republican nomination for president, only to lose to Obama amid the global financial meltdown and dragged down by Bush's low approval ratings. His contentious choice for a running mate, Sarah Palin, the governor of Alaska at the time, was also believed to have contributed to the loss, and is still seen by some as a tarnish on his reputation.

But long before then, McCain was a Navy brat who had little interest in being studious.

John Sidney McCain III was born on Aug. 29, 1936, to a prominent naval family steeped in patriotism. Both his father and grandfather were four-star admirals, with his father, John McCain Jr., advancing to commander in chief of Pacific forces during the Vietnam War.

While McCain followed in his family's military footsteps, he did so with his own flair: When he graduated from the Naval Academy at Annapolis in 1958, he was ranked 894th of 899 graduates.

In a speech to midshipmen at his alma mater in October 2017, McCain joked about his abysmal academic performance.

"My superiors didn’t hold me in very high esteem in those days," he said. "To be honest, I wasn’t too thrilled to be here back then, and I was as relieved to graduate — fifth from the bottom of my class — as the Naval Academy was to see me go."

After graduation, McCain volunteered for combat duty in the Vietnam War and, as a lieutenant commander, got orders to ship out in 1967. He narrowly escaped death in July of that year, when, while preparing for a routine bombing mission, an explosion on the aircraft carrier USS Forrestal engulfed his plane in flames, killing 134 men on board.

Only three months later, on Oct. 26, 1967, McCain's plane was shot down over North Vietnam. Both of his arms and his knee were broken, and McCain was knocked unconscious and taken as a prisoner of war.

That began a five-and-a-half-year nightmare inside a prison where Vietnamese soldiers, upon learning that McCain was the son of an admiral, set out to use him for propaganda purposes. They tortured and beat him, but McCain refused an early release, denying communist North Vietnam a propaganda victory, and followed a code of conduct that POWs must be released in the order they were captured.

When the war ended in 1973, McCain finally returned to a hero's welcome.

In 2008, he spoke passionately about the patriotism he maintained while imprisoned in Hanoi.

This information appeared HERE this evening.

Jeanne Robertson | And the Rain Goes On...

A Friday Funny for YOU - on Saturday .....   Enjoy! 

A father’s blessing (2)

“May God give you of heaven’s dew and of earth’s richness—an abundance.”                                         Genesis 27:28 NIV

Let’s look at the next two ingredients of a father’s blessing: 

(1) The power of prayer. Here’s how Isaac, who was a farmer, prayed for his sons: “May God give you of heaven’s dew and earth’s richness—an abundance of grain and new wine.” Dad, have your children ever heard you praying for them to succeed in life?

Perhaps they’ve heard cutting and critical words like: “How could you be so stupid? Don’t you ever think? You’ll never amount to anything!” If so, apologize and ask their forgiveness. Then create opportunities for them to hear you talk to God about them by name; to hear you speak blessing over them. What a powerful thing is a father’s prayer of blessing over his family!

 (2) The vision of a glorious future. The Bible says, “When there’s no vision, the people get out of control” (Pr 29:18 CEB).

School counselors grieve over the lack of vision in their students. Many of today’s kids see nothing ahead for them but economic gloom, unemployment and hard times. They need somebody to believe in them; to assure them they can succeed and live happy lives; to know their best days are ahead. Isaac didn’t wait for his boys to devise their own vision for the future. No, he prayed for their future success, for their rise to prominence, and for respect with their family and society.

Dad, your kids need you to motivate them in the right direction.

"(clip) Judgement? Have You Ever Read The Bible - Francis Chan

As morality becomes more and more subjective, the concept of judgment becomes increasingly offensive. This means that the determination of what is right or wrong becomes located within the individual instead of an ultimate objective standard of right and wrong which is none other than God. Over time, the very concept of judgment diminishes and ushers a culture into moral chaos.

\

Popular Christian author and speaker Francis Chan issues an urgent plea for us not to ignore God’s judgment. Chan asserts that in our modern culture no one really believes in judgment anymore—not even many Christians! 

The common mantra that is heard is that a loving God would not judge people.

The problem with this thinking is that we barely get out of page 2 of Scripture before we run right into God’s judgment. We read about God killing whole people groups in ways that would make anyone pause in sober reflection. 

As hard as this biblical reality may be, the answer is to not find the wrong in the Scripture but to find the wrong within our own human hearts.

Chan puts it this way: Whenever he disagrees with Scripture he assumes he is wrong.

Practically, this truth should serve as an important motivator for unity within the church. Yes, there are godly and ungodly ways to judge, and the church must discern with clarity and conviction when she displays God’s judgment, but what the church must NOT do is to be quiet about God’s judgment.

When God gets ready to use you...

Did You Ever Wonder Why Bad Things Happen to Good People? Here’s What the Bible Says

“If the Lord is with us, why then has all this happened to us?”                                                                                     (Judges 6:13).

Gideon asked the question thousands of years ago, and we have been asking it ever since. Haven’t we all asked that question secretly, if not out loud, at some point in suffering?

The Israelites were disheartened by the Midianites’ continual oppression. To many, like Gideon, these hardships didn’t make sense if God truly was with his people. They had heard the stories of God’s power, but since they had never seen it displayed, they doubted his presence. That’s why Gideon asked the angel of the Lord, almost sarcastically, “Where are all his wonderful deeds that our fathers recounted to us?” He followed his question with bleak despair, “But now the Lord has forsaken us” (Judges 6:13).

Looking at the circumstances, Gideon saw no evidence that God was there or that God cared.

Why Did This Happen?

For years I felt like Gideon. I wondered why hard things happened when a loving God was supposedly in control. When people told me that God loved me, I thought, If God loves me, then why did this happen to me?

As a polio survivor from infancy, I had multiple surgeries each year, living in and out of the hospital. Throughout my childhood and adolescence, I was convinced that a good God couldn’t love me and watch me suffer. So, I had concluded that God wasn’t good, didn’t exist, or didn’t care. If he was good and cared about me, then why had all that happened to me?

But when I was 16, God in his mercy answered that lifelong question through John 9. His answer was simple and direct: “that the works of God might be displayed” (John 9:3). And with that revelation, my world shifted.

One Little Word Fells Us

I took comfort in the truth that God was with me and could use my suffering to demonstrate his glory, but when new struggles surfaced, sometimes I would return to that familiar question: If the Lord is with me, then why did all this happen?

After my son died, I felt abandoned by God. If God loved me, why didn’t he spare Paul’s life? And after my husband left me, I would scream into the darkness, “God, if you love me, why are you letting this happen to me?”

Those questions must have delighted Satan. Satan turns truth into doubt with that little word: if. Satan’s temptation of Jesus began with the words “If you are the Son of God” (Matthew 4:3). Satan and Jesus both knew that Jesus was the Son of God. Everyone at Jesus’s baptism knew he was the Son of God (Matthew 3:17). Yet when Jesus was alone in the wilderness, Satan tempted him to doubt what he undeniably knew to be true.

The Lord Is with You

Satan tempts us in the same way. When our prayers seemingly go unanswered, Satan wants us to mistrust God and question his promises. Satan wants us to doubt God’s goodness and demand proof of his love, inciting us to ask, “If God loves me, then why am I suffering?” Or as Gideon asked, “If the Lord is with us, then why has this happened?”

If the Lord is with us? If God loves me? Those statements should never have an “if” before them. God’s presence and love are guaranteed to those in Christ. When Satan tempts us to question God’s character, we must stand firmly on the truth of Scripture.

In Christ we know that God is always with us. “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me” (Psalm 23:4). Jesus says, “Behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age” (Matthew 28:20). He will never fail us or forsake us.

Results of His Love

Our Lord loves us extravagantly. God says, “I have loved you with an everlasting love” (Jeremiah 31:3). Jesus says, “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you” (John 15:9). In love, God sent his own Son to die for our sins. Nothing can separate us from his love.

All of Scripture assures us that God is with us and that he loves us. Many of us have known this truth from childhood: “Jesus loves me — this I know. For the Bible tells me so.” 

With reassurances everywhere, we must reframe our question, instead asking, “Because God loves me, then why did this happen?”

Because God loves me. This phrase changes everything. It reorients my heart. It turns me Godward. When I ground myself on the truth that God loves me, I view my situation through a new lens. Rather than questioning his love, I seek to align my thoughts and actions with his, knowing everything in my life is a result of his love and his presence, not his disfavor or absence.

Rather than insisting that God answer me, I can instead ask myself: What is God doing in my suffering? What can I learn from this trial?

Receiving Trials with Faith

With this new perspective, believing by faith that my trials are given out of love, I can deliberately look for the good that God is bringing from my suffering.

Sometimes the good is hard to see. And the little I do see can feel insignificant in comparison to the pain I’m enduring. It is then that I must remind myself that my afflictions are producing “an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison” (2 Corinthians 4:17). And God has a purpose in each of them.

While we may not learn the specific purpose behind each struggle, we do know that God uses suffering to increase our dependence on him. To deepen our faith and draw us closer to him. To refine our character, to prepare us for ministry, to comfort others with the comfort we’ve received. And as we rejoice in him even through pain, God is glorified.

God doesn’t love your suffering. He loves you. He will walk with you through the darkest valleys and will never ever leave you.

When God brings trials into your life, don’t question his love or turn away. God is doing something breathtaking in you, for you, and through you. 

Because the Lord is with you, and because the Lord loves you, everything that happens to you is filled with divine purpose. Every trial you endure has passed through God’s loving hands.

 And one day, when your faith becomes sight, you will thank him for every difficulty.

Source:    By Vaneetha Rendall Risner 

Vaneetha Rendall Risner is a freelance writer and a regular contributor to Desiring God. She blogs at danceintherain.com, and is the author of the book “The Scars That Have Shaped Me: How God Meets Us in Suffering.”

A version of this article previously appeared on the Desiring God website under the headline, “If God Is With Me, Why Did This Happen?”

If You Want to Change, Start with Your Thinking

Change requires new thinking. In order to change, we must learn the truth and start making good choices, but we also must change the way we think.

The way you think determines the way you feel, and the way you feel determines the way you act. If you want to change the way you act, start by changing the way you think. In addition, if you want to change the way you feel, you must start with the way you think.

For instance, you can say, “I need to love my spouse more,” but that isn’t going to work. You can’t fight your way into a feeling. You must change the way you think about your spouse, about your kids, about the rest of your family. That will change the way you feel, which will then change the way you act.

The Bible says, “Let the Spirit renew your thoughts and attitudes” (Ephesians 4:23 NLT).

The battle for sin, the battle to deal with those defects in your life that you don’t like, starts in your mind. If you want to change anything in your behavior or anything in your emotions, you start with your thoughts and your attitude.

The renewal of your mind is related to the word “repentance.” I know repentance is a dirty word for a lot of people. They think it means something bad, something they don’t really want to do, something painful. They think of a guy standing on a street corner with a sign that says, “Repent! The world’s about to end!”

Repentance is about more than changing your behavior. It is about changing your mind and learning to think differently. “Repent” simply means to make a mental U-turn.

You turn from guilt to forgiveness. You turn from frustration to freedom, from darkness to light, from hatred and bitterness to love.

You may also need to change the way you think about God. He’s not mad at you; he’s mad about you! You’re deeply flawed, but you’re deeply loved.

Start with your mind, and change the way you think about your relationships, the economy, the world, and your past, present, and future. Changing the way you think will then affect your emotions and your behavior.

Source: 

First appeared HERE

Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.

Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.                                                                             Matthew 5:7

As we in humility recognize our “poverty of spirit,” God in His mercy forgives and equips us. Having received mercy, we are expected to show it to others.

The biblical term merciful is related to the word for empathy, which means the ability to get right inside another person’s skin until we see things with his eyes, think things with his mind and feel things with his feelings. This is what Jesus did for us in His incarnation. 

Thus:

Blessed are those who empathize with others until they are able to see with the eyes of others, think with their thoughts and feel with their feelings. The one who does this will find others do the same for him or her and will know that God did this for them in Christ Jesus.

How do we see our non-Christian friends? Can we see Muslims, for example, as real people groping in the semi-darkness, under the mere glimmer of light that a crescent moon provides, thinking that is all the light there is?

As we see them, mercy would be an appropriate word to describe our feeling and attitude as well as actions toward them. Just as we would go to the aid of a blind man heading in the wrong direction, so mercy should similarly drive us to go after them and show those who are willing to listen, the way to more complete light.

If we are secure in the knowledge that Christ is the Sun of Righteousness, then we do not need to prove anything but patiently and gently show others the way.

A relatively young man decided to work for the Lord in China. His father was not a Christian and very strongly opposed him. The son decided to attend a series of Christian meetings in one of the areas where he was serving. His father opposed so strongly that they quarreled before he left for the meetings. Then the son suddenly died while he was at the meetings.

The Christians there prayed and showed much concern. They knew that the news of the death would be hard for the father, so they asked a doctor to be there just in case the father needed him. When the father arrived and saw the love of the Christians, he gave his life to the Lord.

RESPONSE: Today I will see others as Jesus sees them and I will empathize with them as though in their skin.

PRAYER: Lord, help grow closer to You so that I will act like You, forgiving others and being sympathetic.