Christian philosopher Ravi Zacharias, at a recent conference, described time as a canvas where a story is painted. We, in our own parts in time, can't see the whole canvas, but like that painting, our part is connected with others. And, since we have an impact on others, it's important to uplift others, not tear them down; to show they are special. Because, each of us is special to someone - especially to God.
This may seem like an odd topic in a blog dedicated to calling America to pray for a repentance revival. Sure, I've discussed spiritual leadership before - even mentioned the free blog book I did on it for those without strong leadership in their home, so even kids can do it. But, a whole post here? Don't worry, eventually it'll make sense.
This may seem like an odd topic in a blog dedicated to calling America to pray for a repentance revival. Sure, I've discussed spiritual leadership before - even mentioned the free blog book I did on it for those without strong leadership in their home, so even kids can do it. But, a whole post here? Don't worry, eventually it'll make sense.
It's not just that we are all special to God - though that is a major part of it. The main difference between how quite a few think of themselves today (man's esteem) and how God thinks of us (God's esteem) is
this: Man's says "I matter to me alone/to me more than anyone." God thinks of us so we can say, "I matter to others." Realizing, of course, that we are special to God most of all, for each of us is fearfully and wonderfully made.(Ps.139:14) So, we should not think of ourselves pridefully, considering only what we want, but should take others into account, since they, too, are fearfully and wonderfully made.
It's great to make a difference
It's great to make a difference
God's way isn't drudgery - we get to matter to others! We don't have to be tigers roaming the wild with nobody to care about us. Sure, some people aren't always totally efficient socially because nonverbal stuff is confusing at times - myself included, though God's given me courage to constantly try, ability to improve, and great friends to encourage me. But, even someone who developmentally finds it really hard - much harder than I do - can be special to people in other ways.
Because you matter to others, what you do impacts them. It can be good or bad. Most of us know someone who can brighten a room when they walk into it, and just those little things to brighten someone's day can mean so much. Other people are really bitter, or bullies, or act in some other way that hurts others. Either way, these are things that last beyond what one might call the moment of impact; something mean can tear a person down, being kind will edify, it'll build them up.
Of course, in the extreme, such things can live on beyond your own life. For instance, instead of spending money on a lavish car which will one day wear out, something as huge as adopting or at least sponsoring an orphan in a faraway country way down to such simple acts as treating people to dinner can provide help which will be remembered and have a positive impact on the community in the way just owning the fanciest car can't.
And even just a little act of kindness can make a huge difference compared to a mean one There are stories of kids who were new in a school and felt totally unwanted being ready to quit until another kid befriended them, invited them to come and play, and eventually that kid rose above all their problems and became a great success.
The root of the problem
You might guess I'm saying the attack nature of society, how it tears others down so much, is something we need to pray that God changes about our nation. Yes, that is true - it also dovetails into that need for repentance for our own sin, such as that example I often use of how some curse the person who cut them off in traffic when the person was rushing to see a loved one they just learned is in the hospital. And, being more forgiving would help a lot - as the Psalmist writes, "Search me, O God...See if there be some wicked way in me" and forsake it.(Ps.139:23-24)
However, that attack culture is just a symptom of something larger which should be a focus in prayer as well, praying the nation change and - once we have gotten our hearts right - praying for and encouraging that change in others.
The root problem is people using man's esteem and not God's. This doesn't just impact how we think about ourselves versus others. Consider the many problems we've had. Violence, police brutality, unjust courts, mistreatment of women and children, all oppression and abuse of power. It's all based on that man-centered esteem that says they have freedom to do whatever they want regardless of the consequences and no matter who gets hurt. It says that because they have power, or anger, or frustration, or bitterness, or whatever, they can do whatever they want. So, that thought life impacts how people act and react.
Some bullies are like that, but if they learn to put others first they will have compassion and make the world better that way. However, other bullies act that way because they are secretly hurting because they feel so unloved, or because some very bad things happen to them. Such a person needs to learn that God loves them no matter what, and that God will be the comfort, peace, etc., the friend that they need. he will provide all their needs if they only ask and trust him to forgive them and save them from their sins. (The other type of bully needs this, too, but more emphasis should be placed on falling short of God's perfection & the penalty for that. Whereas someone who has been mistreated needs to know it wasn't their fault they were mistreated, while still overall being sinner in need of a Saviour.)
Now, consider if people were using God's esteem, and seeing other people matter. That person who felt so angry or frustrated would have asked God to heal them and remove that instead of taking it out on someone, because he or she would realize others matter. That man who mistreated a girlfriend or wife would talk calmly with her, considering her feelings. That officer would use non-lethal force unless absolutely necessary and would remember that every human life is important. And so on.
Many things, of course, require Godly wisdom, but people would use that wisdom knowing: 1. They're not perfect while God has perfect knowledge; and, 2. God loves each of us equally and sees every life as special.
How our loving, personal God sees us
This gets into how God sees us. He is a personal, loving God, not transcendant.
Putting it all together
So, seeing others as important is essential. And, if any person, church, community, or nation wants to see revival, it has to be a vital part.
It can't be just helping others in a man's esteem-centered so people can see us doing that, though. Why? Because that gets back to man's esteem. It's saying, "Look at how special I am because I am helping others." Not only is that false pride (like the Pharisees had), it's also how the terrible cruelty and injustice existed in our nation for hundreds of years. When people did things only based on their own desires, it allowed them to imagine themselves as somehow better than some other group. Whereas, if people had used God's steem, they would have constantly viewed everyone else as equal before God.
Of course, that doesn't mean everyone has to be the same. We are all part of the body - some people are better at some things, just like the eye is better at seeing than the ear, and the ear better at hearing. Some are stronger, more powerful, or more important - your arm is more useful than your earlobe. It's just that - while the earlobe wouldn't rise up and say, "I demand to be used as an arm," your arm also shouldn't take something and start bludgeoning your earlobe. The Bible uses the body in the same way as an illustration(1 Corinthians 12), so we can see how we're all supposed to work together and not be envious, jealous, or bullying of others, all things man-centered esteem - the kind that demands to be the most important thing - causes. We must instead consider ourselves part of a team.
We have solved some problems, but only on the outside. We also - because we focus so much on the outside than we should, though some of that is because we realize inside we can't change people's hearts. But, we do know realistically that it's worse - to use the body analogy again - for the arm to grab a hammer and start pounding on antoher part of the body than it is for the arm to just insult that part.
Getting away from the silliness of body parts acting independently, this is where hearts need to be changed, and where we need to trust God to change hearts in America.
How to pray for God to make us others-centered
So, we should pray that people focus on others more. One way we can pray God changes hearts is that He causes people to respect human life again. There were less than 500 murders a year in the whole country 100 years ago, according to some statistics, because people saw human life as important. it ws regularly taught, so people wouldn't dream of doing things like that or even threatening it - but we can't just police it out of people, god must change our hearts so the Holy Spirit is again actively convicting people of sin before they say (or tweet or text or think) it. That includes life changing things, too, like texting while driving or drunk driving - if there's the potential to do serious, permanent harm to someone else, why do it? Again, hearts need changed so people will stop, and that requires the Spirit at work.(See previous post for look at some ways the Holy Spirit works, as noted in John 16:7-12)
Another is that He will show them that they matter - not just in words, not in trying to make everyone the same, but instead in tring to make sure every part of the body is appreciated as that part. So someone might be first and another last, but it's okay because there will always be something we do better than someone else, and always something we do worse than someone else.
It's okay to be negative, but we can be negative without attacking viciously. At the same time, we should be willing to look at the bright side of things. A recent sports example is that someone commented that because a person was not considered among the top five quarterbacks of all time, it was a "shot at him," when in fact one can still be a great one, even an all-time great, and just not in the top five.
In other words, we should pray that people stop taking everything as an attack; people have the right to tell the truth in love.
Another way is praying that the intense vulgarity of society end, and we get back to speaking the truth in love without all the cursing that goes on. Again, the Holy Spirit will work in people in that area.
Plus, we can pray that God turn our hearts toward Him so that we follow what He wants for us - because he has perfect wisdom and the perfect plan for each of us.
Of course, in the extreme, such things can live on beyond your own life. For instance, instead of spending money on a lavish car which will one day wear out, something as huge as adopting or at least sponsoring an orphan in a faraway country way down to such simple acts as treating people to dinner can provide help which will be remembered and have a positive impact on the community in the way just owning the fanciest car can't.
And even just a little act of kindness can make a huge difference compared to a mean one There are stories of kids who were new in a school and felt totally unwanted being ready to quit until another kid befriended them, invited them to come and play, and eventually that kid rose above all their problems and became a great success.
The root of the problem
You might guess I'm saying the attack nature of society, how it tears others down so much, is something we need to pray that God changes about our nation. Yes, that is true - it also dovetails into that need for repentance for our own sin, such as that example I often use of how some curse the person who cut them off in traffic when the person was rushing to see a loved one they just learned is in the hospital. And, being more forgiving would help a lot - as the Psalmist writes, "Search me, O God...See if there be some wicked way in me" and forsake it.(Ps.139:23-24)
However, that attack culture is just a symptom of something larger which should be a focus in prayer as well, praying the nation change and - once we have gotten our hearts right - praying for and encouraging that change in others.
The root problem is people using man's esteem and not God's. This doesn't just impact how we think about ourselves versus others. Consider the many problems we've had. Violence, police brutality, unjust courts, mistreatment of women and children, all oppression and abuse of power. It's all based on that man-centered esteem that says they have freedom to do whatever they want regardless of the consequences and no matter who gets hurt. It says that because they have power, or anger, or frustration, or bitterness, or whatever, they can do whatever they want. So, that thought life impacts how people act and react.
Some bullies are like that, but if they learn to put others first they will have compassion and make the world better that way. However, other bullies act that way because they are secretly hurting because they feel so unloved, or because some very bad things happen to them. Such a person needs to learn that God loves them no matter what, and that God will be the comfort, peace, etc., the friend that they need. he will provide all their needs if they only ask and trust him to forgive them and save them from their sins. (The other type of bully needs this, too, but more emphasis should be placed on falling short of God's perfection & the penalty for that. Whereas someone who has been mistreated needs to know it wasn't their fault they were mistreated, while still overall being sinner in need of a Saviour.)
Now, consider if people were using God's esteem, and seeing other people matter. That person who felt so angry or frustrated would have asked God to heal them and remove that instead of taking it out on someone, because he or she would realize others matter. That man who mistreated a girlfriend or wife would talk calmly with her, considering her feelings. That officer would use non-lethal force unless absolutely necessary and would remember that every human life is important. And so on.
Many things, of course, require Godly wisdom, but people would use that wisdom knowing: 1. They're not perfect while God has perfect knowledge; and, 2. God loves each of us equally and sees every life as special.
How our loving, personal God sees us
This gets into how God sees us. He is a personal, loving God, not transcendant.
God loves you more than you can imagine. He made you special for a reason, giving you whatever he did becasue he knew it was how you could make the world a better place and glorify Him - after all, he wants us to love, to build others up, etc.. He knows all
our thoughts and feelings, everything ee say and do. He knows those
times we have fallen short of his perfection because of sin. He gives us
freedom to make our own choices, because He loves us and doesn't want
us to be mindless robots. And yet, our sin causes us to be separated
from God. We can't get to God's perfect Heaven because of our sin.
That hurts God more than you can imagine. He's not waiting to strike us down - he's wanting to lovingly call us back to Him when we stray.
So God made a way for us to get to Heaven. Since sin must
be punished, He came in the flesh, to take the punishment for our sin.
Jesus Christ was fully God and fully man. He lived a perfect, sinless
life, and then died on the cross for you and for me and for everyone.
Then, he rose from the dead the third day. All religion is man trying to reach up to God, but God lovingly came to our level because we couldn't reach Him.
He would have come for you if you had been the only person
ever on the face of the earth. "For God so loved the world that He gave
His only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish
but have everlasting life."(Sonship here doesn't mean physical relations, it means having every attribute - Jesus Christ was fully God and man.)
You are whosoever. You can put your name in
the blank instead of the words "the world." That is how special you are to God. That is how special
each of us is. "For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is
eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord."(Romans 6:23.)
You can trust Jesus to save you right now, you don't have
to be in church. Just talk to him and in your own words admit you are a
sinner, that you can't reach His perfect Heaven on your own works, but
that you know He is God in flesh and He died to take the punishment for
your sins and rose from the dead. Then, call on Him to save you from your
sin and trust Him to forgive you and make you knew inside. Turn from
your sin (repentance), and trust him as your Savior.
God created some absolutes - as Ravi Zacharias says, we all have ideas of what absolute love, justice, evil, and forgiveness are. And, they all united at Calvary, when God - despite our sinful state, falling short of His glory - forgave us perfectly, all we need to do is receive it, by taking on Himself the justice we deserve for our sins, showing His perfect love for each of us.
God created some absolutes - as Ravi Zacharias says, we all have ideas of what absolute love, justice, evil, and forgiveness are. And, they all united at Calvary, when God - despite our sinful state, falling short of His glory - forgave us perfectly, all we need to do is receive it, by taking on Himself the justice we deserve for our sins, showing His perfect love for each of us.
So, since each of us is so special to God, once we trust Him to save us from our sins, He lives in each believer through the Holy
Spirit and works in us, making us more and more like Him as we trust
Him to do it.
Putting it all together
So, seeing others as important is essential. And, if any person, church, community, or nation wants to see revival, it has to be a vital part.
It can't be just helping others in a man's esteem-centered so people can see us doing that, though. Why? Because that gets back to man's esteem. It's saying, "Look at how special I am because I am helping others." Not only is that false pride (like the Pharisees had), it's also how the terrible cruelty and injustice existed in our nation for hundreds of years. When people did things only based on their own desires, it allowed them to imagine themselves as somehow better than some other group. Whereas, if people had used God's steem, they would have constantly viewed everyone else as equal before God.
Of course, that doesn't mean everyone has to be the same. We are all part of the body - some people are better at some things, just like the eye is better at seeing than the ear, and the ear better at hearing. Some are stronger, more powerful, or more important - your arm is more useful than your earlobe. It's just that - while the earlobe wouldn't rise up and say, "I demand to be used as an arm," your arm also shouldn't take something and start bludgeoning your earlobe. The Bible uses the body in the same way as an illustration(1 Corinthians 12), so we can see how we're all supposed to work together and not be envious, jealous, or bullying of others, all things man-centered esteem - the kind that demands to be the most important thing - causes. We must instead consider ourselves part of a team.
We have solved some problems, but only on the outside. We also - because we focus so much on the outside than we should, though some of that is because we realize inside we can't change people's hearts. But, we do know realistically that it's worse - to use the body analogy again - for the arm to grab a hammer and start pounding on antoher part of the body than it is for the arm to just insult that part.
Getting away from the silliness of body parts acting independently, this is where hearts need to be changed, and where we need to trust God to change hearts in America.
How to pray for God to make us others-centered
So, we should pray that people focus on others more. One way we can pray God changes hearts is that He causes people to respect human life again. There were less than 500 murders a year in the whole country 100 years ago, according to some statistics, because people saw human life as important. it ws regularly taught, so people wouldn't dream of doing things like that or even threatening it - but we can't just police it out of people, god must change our hearts so the Holy Spirit is again actively convicting people of sin before they say (or tweet or text or think) it. That includes life changing things, too, like texting while driving or drunk driving - if there's the potential to do serious, permanent harm to someone else, why do it? Again, hearts need changed so people will stop, and that requires the Spirit at work.(See previous post for look at some ways the Holy Spirit works, as noted in John 16:7-12)
Another is that He will show them that they matter - not just in words, not in trying to make everyone the same, but instead in tring to make sure every part of the body is appreciated as that part. So someone might be first and another last, but it's okay because there will always be something we do better than someone else, and always something we do worse than someone else.
It's okay to be negative, but we can be negative without attacking viciously. At the same time, we should be willing to look at the bright side of things. A recent sports example is that someone commented that because a person was not considered among the top five quarterbacks of all time, it was a "shot at him," when in fact one can still be a great one, even an all-time great, and just not in the top five.
In other words, we should pray that people stop taking everything as an attack; people have the right to tell the truth in love.
Another way is praying that the intense vulgarity of society end, and we get back to speaking the truth in love without all the cursing that goes on. Again, the Holy Spirit will work in people in that area.
Plus, we can pray that God turn our hearts toward Him so that we follow what He wants for us - because he has perfect wisdom and the perfect plan for each of us.
Of course, it's fine to have dreams. Many people dream of stardom and use their talents and what they accomplish to do many wonderful things. If God calls you to be a preacher, one noted minister once said, don't settle for being a king. However, when one plays sports, sings, acts, or does anything else for the glory of God and He has led them to do that, He will bless them; they just need to pray He leads them in the right direction and for His help to stay away from evil influences.(In other words, not falling in with the wrong crowd who can get them to do things that harm their career, to do things that make them good role models, etc.)
God created us to need a break from all the stresses of life, after all, and that is what entertainment is for. The point is that we can be thankful for these things and still behave in a way that edifies others, building them up instead of tearing them down. A vacation from the frustrations of life should be a time to relax and get away from things, not an excuse to take out those frustrations on others. When we do that, or only do things to draw attention to ourselves, we are using that man's esteem mentioned above. When we help others, build others up, etc., we are using God's esteem. So, while i always cheer and encourage people at sporting events, some people might choose to boo and that's fine. But, the hatred that some people show is totally wrong. The song says "if they don't win it's a shame," not a tragedy.
Of course, there are many other things which I haven't mentioned. But, all of this - not being in attack mode all the time, being more pleasant, and so on - can be combined in one thing. that is the fact that others matter, and we need t be praying that God turn our hearts to where we look as responsibility, not just rights.
After all, those who oppress and do evil are in need of a change of heart. But, so do all of us. All have sinned and come short of the glory of God.
The great thing is, once a person has trusted Christ as Saviour, they have access to God Himself, to go before His throne and seek His help for their country, whichever it is. And, His Holy Spirit will move mightily in the world when people simply turn to HIm with all their hearts and trust Him to make thigns right. Things won't always be perfect, but Jesus promises that while in this world we will have tribulation, we can be of good cheer - He has overcome the world.(John 16:33)
God created us to need a break from all the stresses of life, after all, and that is what entertainment is for. The point is that we can be thankful for these things and still behave in a way that edifies others, building them up instead of tearing them down. A vacation from the frustrations of life should be a time to relax and get away from things, not an excuse to take out those frustrations on others. When we do that, or only do things to draw attention to ourselves, we are using that man's esteem mentioned above. When we help others, build others up, etc., we are using God's esteem. So, while i always cheer and encourage people at sporting events, some people might choose to boo and that's fine. But, the hatred that some people show is totally wrong. The song says "if they don't win it's a shame," not a tragedy.
Of course, there are many other things which I haven't mentioned. But, all of this - not being in attack mode all the time, being more pleasant, and so on - can be combined in one thing. that is the fact that others matter, and we need t be praying that God turn our hearts to where we look as responsibility, not just rights.
After all, those who oppress and do evil are in need of a change of heart. But, so do all of us. All have sinned and come short of the glory of God.
The great thing is, once a person has trusted Christ as Saviour, they have access to God Himself, to go before His throne and seek His help for their country, whichever it is. And, His Holy Spirit will move mightily in the world when people simply turn to HIm with all their hearts and trust Him to make thigns right. Things won't always be perfect, but Jesus promises that while in this world we will have tribulation, we can be of good cheer - He has overcome the world.(John 16:33)
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