Who Is Family?

Ruth replied, "Don't ask me to leave you and turn back. Wherever you go, I will go; wherever you live, I will live. Your people, and your God will be my God." (Ruth 1:16)

Ruth had a broken family. She had married a nice young man, and they were carving out a life for themselves when...he died (see Ruth 1:1-5). Ruth was left miles from home, with no family but her husband's mom. Ruth begged her mother-in-law, Naomi, to let her stick around, and it turns out, Naomi loved Ruth. She helped her find employment in the harvesting fields, and ultimately counseled her in regards to winning Boaz as a husband. When families are broken, God sees to it we are still rewarded with deep relationships. Psalm 68 even says he sets the lonely in families.

 One group working for years to set kids in family relationships (when their own family can't swing it alone) is Big Brothers/Big Sisters. The concept of the program is simple. Kids who need an adult with time to give are paired with just that...a big brother or sister who hangs out with them once a week or so. The results of the program have been astounding. Kids who have someone with time to give are far less likely to miss school, smoke and drink, or even react to problems with violence.

What Ruth and Naomi started isn't unusual. Family can be blood, but Jesus pointed out long ago that family is also the church. He "places the lonely in families" (Psalm 68:6). No one needs to be alone.

Action Step

Read all about it...Ruth is a short book. Who is your family? 

Self-Taught

The words of the wise are like cattle prods...painful but harmful. Their collected saying are like a nail-studded stick with which a shepherd drives the sheep. But, my child, let me give you some further advice: Be careful, for writing books is endless, and much study wears you out. (Ecclesiastes 12:11-12)

Ken Jennings is regarded as one of the greatest "trivial" minds in the world. It took six months to kick him off the quiz show Jeopardy! By the time he finally lost, he had earned a spot in the Guinness World Records for earning a record fortune on a quiz shows...$2.52 million. Jennings didn't learn all of his information in school. He learned by exercising curiosity every day of his life. Jennings says those who have a thirst for knowledge live far more interesting lives. We have to agree.

Solomon mentions the pain of being goaded by wisdom. It's like exercising for the first time when you are terribly out of shape. It hurts! Exercising breaks down muscles, wounding them, so they can heal themselves and come back stronger than before. Solomon says the acquisition of wisdom is like a nail-studded board poking you in the hiney...that'll get you up and moving!

Let's see if we can get up and moving...from the couch, from your bed (in the morning), or whatever you tend to go for vegetation! Try something new this week to "take your mind to the gym." Here are some of our favorites: 

• Do a crossword puzzle.
• Try sudoku.
• Read a "self-help" book (nonfiction)
• Watch a TED talk.

Action Step
Set aside a portion of each day to "take your mind to the gym." Not just for today or a week...as a lifelong habit.
  

The Beanstalk Principle

Do not despise these small beginnings, for the Lord rejoices to see the work begin, to see the plumb line Zerubbabel's hand. (Zechariah 4:10)

You are familiar with the story of "Jack and the Beanstalk," right? Jack goes off to sell the family cow so he and his mom can eat, and a mysterious old man suckers him into trading Old Bessie for some "magic" beans. Of course Mom is furious with Jack, and in a fit of fury, she tosses the beans out the window. Up grows the beanstalk, and Jack repeatedly climbs up the stalk to the home of rich ogre and robs him blind.

Perhaps it's not the most honorable example of wealth building, but here's the thing: Jack was forced with a lot of limitations in the beginning of this fairy tale. He and Mom were starving, and the cow had quit producing milk. From the pictures we've seen in fairy-tale books, the cow had limited prospects as a beef cow too. Jack is young and without any marketable skills. He comes home with nothing but a handful of small seeds...about what you'd expect when you send a kid to save the family.

Small things, however, can set huge things in motion. Zachariah reminds us never to dismiss the small things or to judge what God is up to by our meager, human standers. You see, this is part of the same passage where God warns Israel, "It is not by force nor by strength, but by Spirit" that he will deliver her (4:6), Zachariah prophesied about two olive trees on either side of God's dwelling place. One was Joshua, a less than imposing military figure. The other was the high priest Zerubbabel, who built a less than imposing Temple. Yet God said these two were moving mirroring his own story about his plan for humanity's salvation, accomplished as we know by the humble servant King and High Priest Jesus, rather than the impressive military conqueror so many were expecting. God does not always use massive show of power. In fact, he's saving that for the end of the book.

It started with a bean. God has graciously provided the stalk.


Action Plan
Your gift is not too small. Find one small good deed you are passionate about and can do on a continuing basis. See if a big old stalk takes root! 

Five Words to Avoid

So you cannot become my disciple without giving up everything you own. (Luke 14:33)

One of the most frequent reasons given for not tithing and not giving to church and outside ministries is budget problems: "I can't afford to give." Those are the five words we want to help you avoid, because, in most cases, they simply aren't true. What we are really saying with those words is either we have put ourselves in a bad spot with debt or we would have to make lifestyle changes we are not willing to make in order to add giving to our budget. But that's the thing about truly following God. Once he invites us to get in on his big adventures, he asks us to make life changes to do so.

The examples of this are as numerous as the people we know and love in the Bible. Abraham was asked to give his son as a sacrifice. Ruth had to leave her home and her people. The disciples dropped heir fishing nets and walked  away from everything they had ever known; by the time all was said and done, eleven of twelve had given their lives. There is no such thing as following God without making an adjustment in your life, and sometimes it's an adjustment that doesn't make much sense to you or others. There's a cost involved. Jesus isn't telling us in Luke 14 to literally sell everything we own. He's reminding us it's not ours to begin with.

The reason we can afford to give is because everything belongs to Jesus. We manage it well or we manage it poorly, as simple as that. The money we've been entrusted with is of varying amounts, but the principle remains the same...if we are managing whatever we have been given so poorly that we have none to give, even what we have will be taken from us. We can give. We may just need to make adjustments.


Action Step
What would you be willing to sell or give up so that you could be freed to give financially? How can you free more of your time to say yes to God's invitation?

Where Are the Real Men?

[King David said to his, Solomon,] "I am going where everyone on earth must someday go.  Take courage and be a man. Observe the requirements of The Lord your God, and follow all his ways. Keep the decrees, commands, regulations, and laws written in the Law of Moses so that you will be successful in all you do and wherever you go." (1 Kings 2:1-3)

Guys are experiencing somewhat of an identity crisis right now. The average age of marriage for a guy has risen to twenty-nine. A lot of grown guys are spending yours living with Mom and Dad staring at a TV screen an average of six hours a day. It's Mo wonder then that 17 percent of your fishing pond are weighing in with technical "obesity" and less than 59 percent are sticking around to be a father after getting a girlfriend pregnant.

This not to villainize guys. It's just that they don't have many good role models these days. It looks like a lot of guys are going to the Hollywood School of Preventing Intimacy, Money and Power, Being Put in Your Place by Dominant Woman, and 101 Guns You'll Be Allowed to Own. What about instruction in justice, loving what is good, serving rather than taking, and speaking tenderly to his wife and children?

Today's verse recorded Kings David's parting words to his son, Solomon. He told his son to "take courage and be a man." His wisdom called his son to step up and lead. And Solomon did. He wasn't perfect, but he did demonstrate goodness.

Be sure you wait for a guy who has had the advantage of Solomon...a wise and life-tested mentor against whom he has been able to measure, test, and develop his own manhood modeled for them to be the perfect picture of chivalry. And why do we go for the bad boy who seems to be more exciting? Choose your guy for life is the single most important decision you are going to make other than following Jesus as your Savior. The real men are out there. And most of the time, they have a real man teaching them.


Action Plan
Have your dad or an adult guy you respect help you make up a list of "manly" traits that you should look for in a guy.

That Girl Is Poison by Carl Lentz

I would love to know what you guys think of this message when your done listening to it. Please comment on the video. :)

Negativity Part 2

Keep putting into practice all you learned and received from me...everything you heard from me and saw me doing. Then God of peace will be with you. (Philippians 4:9)

A pastor in Kansas City, Missouri, realized he could not ask his people to imitate him without initiating a lot of negative talk. And so he set a goal for himself. He was going to go twenty-one days without saying anything negative. To track his goal, he placed a bracelet on one wrist. Anytime he caught himself saying something negative, he would take the bracelet off, place it on the other wrist, and begin his count again. It proved to be a simple system...but not easy. He finally did it to twenty-one days, but not before breaking three bracelets and watching nearly three months of his life pass by! Three months to reach twenty-one days of pure positivity.

Today's devotion is sort of one big Action Step. Paul concludes his lesson on thought life and unity with an exhortation to imitate him. How great would it be to have the kind of countenance and reputation where we could say to other people, "Do what I do," and not have to worry one bit about the results of that?

If you choose to take this challenge, there are a couple of things to consider. What you are undertaking is a promise to speak blessings rather than curses. Speaking a blessing over a situation is not the same thing as condoning it. To speak a blessing is to find the good (whatever is true, lovely, right, ect.) and give voice to it. You do not need to change your stance on a friend's unholy relationship, in other words, in order to stop bathing everyone around you with your negative views on it.

Speaking truth is not the same thing as speaking negatively. Again, let's look at the friend who is in an unholy relationship. To tell her privately her decisions are not right in God's eyes is not the same thing at all as speaking negativity. Your convictions can be spoken with complete grace and truth without an ounce of negativity present.