Overcome Obstructions: Submit to God - Part 3

In Numbers 14 the Hebrew people refused to follow God's chosen plan to claim the promised land flowing with milk and honey. Time was of the essence! A decision had to be made and action taken to acquire God's blessing. I'm always amazed by predictable opposition to the clearest of God's directives.

          Were these people unaware they were accountable to God for their lack of submissiveness and to the reality that God's timing determines success or failure? Whatever the opportunity, giants, however they’re defined, will have to be subdued. The obstruction for the Hebrew people was a failure of faith that God would be with them and go before them to ensure victory.

          Listen as 1 John 5:4 gives us courage to step up to the plate and be submissive to God's leadership. "Everyone who is a child of God overcomes the world and our faith gives the victory that overcomes the world." To overcome means to subdue our fears and doubt and move forward in faith under the protection and presence Christ Jesus will provide.  

Repentance: Letting Go of Sin - Part 1

I once heard a friend describe an acquaintance as an "accident waiting to happen." My friend was speaking humorously, but some behaviors suggest a recklessness that gives birth to heartbreak and sorrow. Interestingly, some people often gain notoriety because of their resilience to recover from the suffering of terrible tragedies.

Resilience can be a means for continuing immoral behavior. Turning from evil behaviors can be rejected even when the necessity to change cannot be denied. Godly repentance indicates the Holy Spirit is nudging you to face the truth and realize the certainty that Christ Jesus lives in you.

God's mercy and forgiveness sets in motion a process of transforming an arrogant, unrepentant person into a new, Christ-centered person. Ephesians 4:1 explains that you are being made new in your attitude and will experience a new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness. Won't you give God permission to make this transformation of love within you? 

Choosing Compassion and Forgiveness - Part 1

Standing up for what you believe can be a test of your faith. The older brother in the story of the prodigal son stood up for what he believed to be an unjust, unfair situation. He saw his father as having coddled his younger brother, who had been totally irresponsible to the point of disgracing the family.

This parable demonstrates how concern for others can be completely absent. The older brother lacked sympathy for his younger sibling, who through bad choices had squandered his inheritance. The older son could not muster any sympathy for his father, who loved the younger son regardless of the pain he had brought to the family.

Sympathy is expressed sorrow, felt for someone who is hurting. Empathy goes beyond sympathy. Empathy feels as others feel, thinks as they think, and accepts them as they are. With God's help, you can rise above your troubles and reach out with compassion to others who have made bad choices that affected you personally. Empathy reflects God's transforming grace.  

Jealousy or Forgiveness? It's Your Choice - Part 1

When the prodigal son returned home, his father was so happy that he ordered a celebration with music, dancing, and special food. But this was bad news for the older son, who felt angry and refused to participate. Listen to the hurt feelings he expressed to his father. "Look, all these years I've slaved for you. Yet, you never once gave me a party. But when this irresponsible son of yours shows up, you offer a fantastic family celebration."

Did the older brother have good cause for his anger? He was responsible, hard-working, and dedicated but felt his father never recognized him for his work and loyalty. Now he felt angry and threatened by the father's acceptance and forgiveness of his irresponsible, worthless brother.

What prevented the older brother from celebrating his brother's return? Perhaps he failed to understand that his father's unconditional love was not based on performance or faithfulness. This father did not love the older son less for being faithful and loyal. The father's love surpassed the bad choices of his younger son. God's love for you surpasses your bad choices.  

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As of Monday, March 21 new posts now occur 3 days of each week on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays.

Blog posts will coordinate with the radio broadcast schedule of Attitudes/Answers that airs at 5:45 PM on KHCB radio at 105.7FM in the Houston area. To stream it live or for a listing of sister stations in TX, OK, LA, and FL, you may click on the KHCB link in the "About Me" section of this page.

Rising Up, Finding Hope - Part 1

Trust is an intellectual and emotional process that helps us to make sound judgments. Trust makes life normal and predictable by securing the safety and reliability of our relationships. Trust fights against anxiety and fear by activating faith in Christ Jesus. St. Paul challenged the fear of death by trusting that his faith in Christ Jesus would deliver him safely into the presence of God himself.

When the young man in Jesus' parable of the lost son faced an uncertain future and even death, he activated a fragile trust that had been overshadowed by a facade of self-confidence and false assumptions. Trust enabled him to deal effectively with a troubling, harsh reality.

Trust permits us to reframe a bad situation in order that a desirable outcome can be achieved. The prodigal son trusted his father to welcome him home where he could mature into the person God intended. Trust is the assured reliance on another's integrity. Trust is what God desires from us.

Consequences of Positive and Negative Reality - Part 1

Everyone has escaped or will feel the need to escape reality in some way. At the beginning my military basic training, a young man suffered a grand mal epileptic seizure. The medics took him away and we never saw him again. He thought he could leave his medical issues at home, so he enlisted in the Air Force and ceased taking his medications.

Making an all-out effort to escape dependence on medication and a negative identity, he devised a plan that was doomed to failure. The young man's denial encountered a harsh reality. Imagine returning home and carrying the burden of shame and humiliation.

The young man in Jesus' story of the prodigal son fostered fantasies that also would end in failure. When these fantasies became contaminated with the stench of a hog pen, his ability to deal constructively with that reality surfaced. Reality instilled in him determination to go home and face his father who loved him. Acceptance of reality activates God's help, so if the need exists, choose to return and renew your relationship with him now.

Choosing Reality: For Today and Tomorrow - Part 2

Each of us has thought, "That may work in the movies, but not in reality." We may not like the face of reality, especially when it appears hard or unkind. Reality can be scary, challenging, and nerve-racking. However it can be calming and give its beholder a sense of hope and confidence for the future.

God gives us power to make decisions, to be creative, and to change. Power is a strange phenomenon. Once acquired, it's very difficult to give up. Power can become an addiction. John Dalberg-Acton observed, "Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely." The healthiest use of power comes as we seek to share it with others.

The issue is not to seek more control and power in order to compensate for our limitations, but to trust that God is at work in our lives for our good. Psalm 62:8 confirms that we can go to God any time and pour out our hearts to him, for he is our refuge and hope for change. This is God's reality and the way for peace and confidence in a world that is ever-changing.

Family Peace: Putting God in Charge - Part 1

Seeking a balance of power has always been a struggle for a nation and   for families. Negotiating this balance is preferred to power struggles that strive for  dominance. Power struggles tend to damage each person's integrity, which in turn jeopardize the trust and respect that anchor a relationship. Without trust and respect, a relationship is in danger of eroding.

Strong healthy couples learn to honor each other's need for power that is embodied in their gifts and talents. Honoring each other's need for power recognizes a need for independence that compliments the need for dependence. Acknowledging and accepting each other's strengths calms the fears and insecurities that are intertwined with power struggles.

Communication centered on healthy discussion opens a way for making choices which are based on trust and respect. Trust and respect assume each person will act with integrity and honesty. Proverbs 11:13 acknowledges that. "You can put your confidence in someone who is trustworthy." Becoming trustworthy is a choice God will honor.  

The Power of Patience: Taming the Temper - Part 3

The family is the most prized possession of a nation, for it provides a stabilizing force that's sustained by love, trust, and respect. Family members create a system of rules and boundaries for the distribution power and authority. Fair and healthy distribution of power provides contentment to the family unit. Successful management of power minimizes conflict.

Striving for power is a contributing factor to a family's demise. Power struggles come in many forms and often are observed at family gatherings. Jacob and Esau represent a classic struggle between siblings striving for power. Jacob outwits Esau for his birthright. Then Jacob and his mother conspire against Esau for their father's blessing.

Couples struggle for power by using money, sex, and children. Finding the appropriate balance of power, as intended by God, keeps a family healthy and together. God intended for family members to be subject to one another out of respect, love, and trust. Choosing God's way is the pathway to peace, joy, and blessings.

The Power of Patience: Taming the Temper - Part 1

During holidays and other special family gatherings, a quick temper can devastate the joyful spirit of family unity. Individuals and relationships suffer when tempers flare out of control. Lack of respect and trust diminishes for those who are quick to anger, and their attendance becomes undesirable. Personal safety may also become an issue.

A quick tempered person usually possesses a fragile ego-strength or ego-boundaries. A quick temper reflects a fear of loss of control over a situation, over another person, or within oneself. A quick temper is an effort to hide low self-esteem. A quick tempered person never acquires the control, love, or respect he or she desires.

Listen to Proverbs 15:18. "A hot tempered man stirs up dissension, but a patient man calms a quarrel." You can control your temper by permitting God to empower you with patience. This is possible when you receive this gift, a fruit of the Spirit. The power of patience makes you acceptable and lovable. With God, all things are possible. 

Conscience, Your Inner Voice: To Heed or Not To Heed? - Part 3

Is it possible to silence the voice of conscience? Personal conduct is managed by our value system, so overruling the voice of conscience is possible,  but not advisable. Alcohol and street drugs are a deterrent to heeding what our  conscience tries to communicate. Anger, resentment, and bitterness also play a major role in silencing the sounds of conscience.

As you consider these words, what parallel thoughts are you aware of right now? Parallel thoughts can be significant messages that your conscience is trying to convey. Do these thoughts signal danger you need to heed? History verifies that misfortune is related to weakness of character and conscience.

God's desire is to cleanse your conscience so that your conduct gives witness to his power in your life. You can choose to change and conform to God's purpose for your life. 2 Corinthians 1:12 reminds us, "Our conscience testifies that we have conducted ourselves in ways that witness the holiness and sincerity that are from God." This is a worthy objective.  

Managing Anger with Integrity - Part 3

Understanding the purpose of anger in everyday life and relationships is critical to sustaining a healthy integrity. The American Heritage Dictionary defines anger as a feeling of extreme displeasure, hostility, indignation, or exasperation toward someone or something. This could include feeling anguished, troubled, or distressed. David Mace said, "Anger is feeling displeasure toward a person or object with a desire to remove the cause."

Anger turned inward creates depression. However, anger can be healthy and helpful when used to correct a bad situation while concurrently saving your integrity from guilt and shame. Counseling can help anyone manage anger in an open, honest way without damaging relationships and integrity.

Mark 3:5 portrays Jesus expressing anger while taking positive actions to correct a situation which included healing a man's shriveled hand. Managing anger for healthy constructive good is choosing to change in ways that please and honor God.  

Finding Purpose in Life's Ups and Downs - Part 3

Integrity determines how success or failure is managed. Personal failure can be devastating because failure is attached to our values, morals, and sense of uprightness. It is not unusual to overestimate what we can do with the skills and abilities that God has given us, but failure does not require a denunciation of who we are as persons.

By his mercy, kindness, and forgiveness God will, by Christ Jesus, renew a meaningful and purposeful spirit within us. Finding purpose beyond failure is where integrity plays a major role. When we are enlightened and strengthened by the Holy Spirit, our integrity prevents us from lapsing into despair when failure, whether perceived or real, comes our way.

A friend was forced to take early retirement, but resigning to a life without purpose was out the question. Instead, he determined to find a new purpose for the remaining time God would give him. His integrity allowed him to use this crisis as a means for determining how all things work together for good to those who love God and are called according to his purpose.  

Finding Purpose in Life's Ups and Downs - Part 2

Is it possible to live without purpose? People will devise a purpose, even if contrived of nothing more than accumulating things. Material things provide only short-term pleasure and do little to strengthen and solidify your integrity. Integrity is strengthened and fortified when you know that your life, your ideals, and beliefs exist for a significant, godly purpose.

Speaking on this subject, General Douglas MacArthur said, "You don't get old from living a specific number of years; you get old because you abandon your ideals. Years wrinkle your skin, but renouncing your ideals wrinkles your soul. Worry, doubt, fear, and despair are enemies that bring us down and turn us to dust before we die." An ideal is an honorable or worthy principle that supports integrity.

Believing you have a godly purpose for living is a wonderful choice. Purpose for living is a blessing to God that brings hope to yourself and others. Never close the door to what God can do with you, whatever your age. Jesus stands at the door of your life waiting for an invitation to come in. 

Crisis and Compromise: Choosing God's Way - Part 3

It's not unusual to get stuck in a career before understanding what best suits your personality. Someone thought you were a good fit for a particular job; an opportunity opened up, and that's been your career. Integrity is compromised at the point of knowing that something else would have been better but that too many obligations exist to risk changing.

Those who endure these situations often come to retirement feeling compromised. Who you are and what you want is often in conflict with what you have to do. However integrity is invigorated by finding meaningful life purposes beyond a career. Choosing to serve God in ways that utilize your gifts and talents prevent lapsing into sadness or even despair.

Believing that God's provides opportunities insures you can feel confident rather than languish in frustration. A clear conscience, fostered by integrity and combined with hope, gives energy for doing what God provides. Listen to Proverbs 2:6: "The Lord gives wisdom and from his mouth come knowledge and understanding." These blessings make life worth living. 

Crisis and Compromise: Choosing God's Way - Part 2

If you could choose to live your life over what would you change? Could you say, "Given the entirety of my life, I would want it to be the same"? Such a  person lives life with a healthy sense of integrity. This person has experienced the reality of God's word "that all things work together for good for those who love God and are called according to his purposes."

In fact, God desires for you to live a life of adventure and challenge while refusing to damage your integrity by deliberate, sinful choices. Do you realize that God gives you the right to determine your destiny? You can choose your own path, regardless of the cost to your integrity, or chose to follow God's plan and purposes as he reveals them to you.

There are internal, social, and spiritual imperatives for sustaining a healthy integrity. We can choose to live by specific values that identify us as the person God created and loves. We can choose to live by God's command to respect and love others as we love ourselves. Healthy integrity depends on putting God first in your life. These are choices God will bless.  

Crisis and Compromise: Choosing God's Way - Part 1

Middle-aged men and women are subject to having the wind knocked out of their sails just when they should be the happiest and most content with their life's achievements. The twenty year period between ages forty and sixty produce an alarming number of divorces. What do you think could be the reason for this sense of discouragement and alienation?

Researchers refer to the emergence of a crisis of integrity. It's not unusual for a person's integrity, that personal sense of respectability and uprightness, to become fragmented and damaged. The movie Liar Liar was based on a person's agreeing not to tell a lie, even an insignificant, small lie, for twenty-four hours. Have you tried this test of integrity?

White lies and other misrepresentations of oneself diminish integrity; yet there is hope for restoring damaged integrity. The Lord Jesus Christ makes this possible through confession, repentance, and forgiveness. Jesus enables and empowers each person to choose righteousness and faith, which is a decision for healthy, positive change. 

Integrity: Character Strength for a Lifetime - Part 1

The years between youth and retirement often are filled with giving your absolute best for the highest possible achievement, yet both success and failure are prevalent on the pathway to retirement. You're well aware of the determined adolescent who leaves home for college only to return home a semester later unable to re-enroll because of poor grades.

Getting back on track is a requirement at specific intervals along the way to success. What helps is knowing that God is at work to provide confidence for facing an uncertain future. Jesus gave us these words of challenge. "Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink, about your body, what you will wear." He's telling us to re-focus. God cares and will provide.

Moving past failure and disappointment is ultimately dependent on faith and trust in the Lord Jesus Christ, who endows us with intrinsic value and self-worth. This motivates us to be receptive to God's purpose for us as our aging consistently progresses onward. God gives us wisdom and discernment for choosing what is appropriate at each stage of our development.

Spiritual Integrity: Hope for the Family - Part 3

What does it take for the family to survive intact from all the troubles that are bound to surface? Family members will change, so wisdom and emotional energy are required to strengthen and hold the family together as it changes. The spiritual integrity of the family depends on parents' personal choices and what they model for their children.

The alternative is to avoid conflict and problems that are difficult to manage. It's an absolute necessity to believe the fact that the family is vulnerable to troubles, so taking time to evaluate priorities is a critical choice for strengthening the family. Few would argue that a successful career requires a constant investment of time and energy. Your time, skills and wisdom are a requirement for keeping your family together.

Prayer and determination are required for changing bad habits in the family system. The good news is that God stands ready to help by giving strength to the needy. Listen to Isaiah 12:2. "God is my savior; I will trust him and not be afraid. The Lord gives me strength and power." Hold fast to these promises.

Spiritual Integrity: Hope for the Family - Part 1

Every day is a challenge in some way, ranging from minor obstacles that are easily managed to major tasks that require precise focus and concentration to conquer. Financial analysts say we're coming out of the economic recession, but have cautioned against overactive expectations. The biggest challenge might be more personal than finding ways to enjoy prosperity.

At a Bible conference for business men and women, many stated a desire to grow spiritually. To obtain a deeper spirituality, a greater challenge has to be met  and conquered. What is that? The greatest challenge is to hold in check the drive and desire to acquire more "stuff" that we're certain will satisfy our need to be happy and content.

God's desire is for us to mature in order to be realistic. With this attribute we can fulfill our commitment to serve Christ Jesus and overcome the challenges we face. Listen to God's promise to Joshua. "No one will be able to stand against you...I will be with you; I will never leave you nor forsake you." That promise is for you.