February 24 - Spiritual Check Ups

Spiritual Check Ups

“For which cause we faint not; but though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day.”  2 Corinthians 4:16

If you’ve lived any amount of years, you’ve discovered that check ups need to be part of your routine.  Check ups are often in order for the realm of our hearts, our teeth, our eyes, or possibly some other areas that might feel uncomfortable or ache.

At the same time, there are times in our lives when we should probably stop and get a spiritual check up.  After all, just like our physical bodies have a habit of collecting excess weight, obstructions, and impediments along the way, so do our spiritual lives.

Not long ago, I was reading one of my favorite Christian writers, Philip Yancey, who shared about the travail of reaching another major milestone in his life.  He wrote this:  “When I turned 50 this year, I underwent a complete physical checkup.  Doctors poked, prodded, X-rayed, and even cut open parts of my body to assess and repair the damage I had done in half a century.  As the new millennium rolled around, I went on a silent retreat led by a wise spiritual director.

In those days of silence and solitude, I paid attention to what might need to change in order to keep my soul in shape.  The more I listened, the longer grew the list.  Here is a mere sampling, a portion of a spiritual action plan for the next 50 years.

Question your doubts as much as your faith:  By personality, or perhaps as a reaction to a fundamentalist past, I brood on doubts and experience faith in occasional flashes.  Isn’t it about time for me to reverse the pattern?

For you own sake, simplify.  Eliminate whatever distracts you from God.  Among other things, that means a ruthless winnowing of mail, and giving catalogues, junk mail, and book club notices no more time than it takes to toss them in the trash.  If I eve get the nerve, my television set should probably land there as well.

Always ‘err,’ as God does, on the side of freedom, mercy and compassion.  I continue to marvel at the humility of a sovereign God who descends to live inside us, His flawed creatures.  ‘Quench not the Spirit,’ Paul says in one place, and in another ‘Grieve not the Holy Spirit of God.’  In so many words, the God of all power asks us not to hurt Him.  Do I show that same humble, non-coercive attitude toward people of whom I disapprove?

Forgive, daily, those who caused the wounds that keep you from wholeness.  Increasingly, I find that our wounds are the very things God uses in His service.  By harboring blame for those who caused them, I slow the act of redemption that can give the wounds worth and value, and ultimately healing.

My spiritual check up offers one clear advantage over my physical check up.  From my doctor, I learned that no matter what I do my body continues to deteriorate.  At best, a good diet and exercise routine will slow that deterioration.  Spiritually, however, I can look forward to growth, renewed vigor, and improved health- as along as I continue to listen, and then act on what I hear God saying.”

As I am full speed moving toward my 50^th year of life, I am heeding this good advice.  While there are many more things that we could add to our personal lists, it’s important that we occasionally do a check up on the things that keep us growing strong.  In Psalm 26:2, David writes, “Test me, O Lord, and try me, examine my heart and mind.”  There is no one more willing than our Great Physician.

Terry Risser

Reflections:

1)   What area above strikes you most as important in this season of your life?

2)   How does our spiritual growth and physical growth differ?

Consider reading the word

 

Copyright 2014- Terry Risser

February 23 - A Life Of Integrity

A Life Of Integrity

Billy Graham once said, “Integrity is the glue that holds our way of life together.  We must constantly strive to keep our integrity intact.”  While we live in a world that promotes the survival of the fittest and an “anything-goes” mentality, the person that maintains his or her character will have accomplished life’s greatest mission.

Edgar Guest once penned a message to himself called, “Am I True To Myself?” It’s worth reviewing occasionally to remind ourselves what is most important.

I have to live with myself, and so

I want to be fit for myself to know,

I want to be able, as days go by,

Always to look myself straight in the eye;

I don’t want to stand, with the setting sun,

And hate myself for things I have done.

I don’t want to keep on a closet shelf

A lot of secrets about myself;

And fool myself, as I come and go,

Into thinking that nobody else will know

The kind of man I really am;

I don’t want to dress up myself in sham.

I want to go out with my head erect,

I want to deserve all men’s respect;

But here in the struggle for fame and pelf,

I want to be able to like myself;

I don’t’ want to look at myself and know

That I’m bluster and bluff and empty show.

I can never hide myself from me;

I see what others may never see;

I know what others may never know

I never can fool myself and so,

Whatever happens, I want to be,

Self respecting and conscious free.

It’s been said that integrity is who we are when no one else is looking.  Proverbs 10:9 says, “The man of integrity walks securely, but he who takes crooked paths will be found out.”  Most importantly, our lives become a pleasing sacrifice to God.  When all is said and done, we’ll take that alone with us to heaven.

Terry Risser

Reflections:

1)    What area in your life have you have kept from others and even God?

2)    Ask God to give you strength and courage to live a life for Him.

Consider reading the word today:

Copyright 2014- Terry Risser

February 22 - The Choice To Rejoice

The Choice To Rejoice

“I will rejoice, and I want to share my joy with all of you. And you should be happy about this and rejoice with me.” Philippians 2:17

Most people live with an “If/Then” philosophy about life.   If I get to graduate, then I will be happy.  If I get married, then I will be happy.  If I get this job, then I will be happy. Like a probing test, you can “fill in the blank.”  You get the point.

Years ago, a women in our church shared how she used to live in a similar manner.  She used to pray, “Lord, please don’t come back until I graduate from college.”  Then, “Lord, please don’t come back until I get married.”  Then soon,  “Lord, please don’t come back until I have a child.”  After many challenges in parenting, she said, “Even so, Lord, come quickly.” 

The joy lesson the Apostle Paul offers, teaches us that we can find God working in every circumstance.   The reason…joy is a decision.  In a sense, you are as joyful as you choose to be.  After all, life is a series of choices.   As I’ve often said, “Choice produces Habits, Habits produce Actions, Actions produce Lifestyles, and Lifestyles produce Destinies.”  There’s no way around it.  All large destinies can be traced back to little choices.

If you are discouraged today, it’s because you are choosing to be discouraged.  You can choose to be joyful because there are many things you can be joyful about.  God would say to us, if you learn to be content and you choose to make the right decisions, you can be joyful. You are as happy as you choose to be.  You’re as joyful as you choose to be. 

Author John Maxwell shared the importance of a positive attitude.  A newly married woman insisted on going to the California desert so she could be near her soldier husband. The only place the couple could find to live was a rundown shack near an Indian village. The daytime heat was unbearable -105 degrees in the shade. The dry wind blew constantly, covering everything with dust.  None of the Indians spoke English so the young wife was miserable. Then she learned that her husband was going further into the desert for 2 weeks.  So, she wrote her mother and asked if she could come home. In her mother’s reply were these words: "Two men looked through prison bars; one saw mud, the other saw stars." As the woman read those lines over and over, she decided to change. She would look for the stars.  She set out to make friends with the Indians.  When they saw her genuine interest, they taught her weaving and pottery. She learned their culture. Then she began to study the desert itself-its cacti, Joshua trees, and seashells left behind by the sands of an ocean floor. Not only did she survive, she became known as an expert on the area and later published a book about it.

Paul knew a thing or two about prison bars.  Behind of few bars, he saw some stars when he wrote, “I will rejoice, and I want to share my joy with all of you. And you should be happy about this and rejoice with me.” (Philippians 2:17)  Rather than writing it from a columned furnished palace, he was lying in a corroding floor in a prison.  Yet, no less than 17 times in four chapters of Philippians, Paul was saying …because joy is a choice, I am going to make a choice to rejoice.  In other words, you can make the most of your experience…even when things don’t go right. 

Rejoice, we can, for two main reasons.  First, I can always be joyful because God is in control no matter what happens.  Second, I can be assured God will have the final say in my circumstances. One person said, “JOY” comes when we prioritize “J-esus,” “O-thers,” and “Y-ou,”  a good way to keep the joy-gate wide open.

Are you in an unbearable, inescapable situation? Do you have a negative attitude? Look at the situation positively and make the best of it with the help of God.  Who knows? Like Paul and our Desert Damsel, you might end up writing a book about it someday.

Terry Risser

Reflections

1)   When are you most susceptible to discouragement?

2)   Suggest a reason why joy may be only inches away if you begin to pray.

Consider reading the word today:

 

Copyright 2014- Terry Risser