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Monday, December 26, 2011

YEAR ONE DEMOGRAPHICS


I started The Transforming Truth blog on Dec. 28, 2010, so in a few days year one will be history. It's interesting, at least to me, to see the diverse places in the world where readers live. None of us ever fully knows the full impact of our words, whether we write a blog or not, and it's humbling to think we're helping encourage people whom we'll most likely never meet this side of heaven. 

127 total blog posts

3,545 total pageviews

Countries:
Mexico, India, Malaysia, Canada, Sri Lanka, Morocco, Netherlands, Puerto Rico, Peru, Poland, Denmark, Australia, Croatia, Mexico, Germany, China, United Kingdom, Hungary, South Africa, Estonia, Kenya, Brazil, Japan, Swaziland, Norway, Russian Federation, Philippines, Singapore, Korea, Indonesia, and France.
31 countries

States:
Washington, Oregon, California, Texas, Wisconsin, New York, Florida, Illinois, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Indiana, Arizona, Missouri, West Virginia, Michigan, Tennessee, Colorado, Connecticut, South Carolina, North Carolina, Minnesota, Idaho, Kentucky, Alaska, Montana, Alabama, Massachusetts, Ohio, Virginia, New Jersey, Georgia, Arkansas, Utah, Kansas,  and the District of Columbia.
34 states plus the District of Columbia

Malaysia has the second largest group of readers; the United States is by far the largest group. Followed by: Canada, Germany, Russia and India.

Top Five Blogs in Year One:
#1: FIRST WORDS, Dec. 28, 2010 (*This was the very first post)
#2: GET READY TO BE SHOCKED, Aug. 5, 2011
#3: SOMETIME THERE’S MISUNDERSTANDING, Nov. 22, 2011
#4: WHEN BITTERNESS BLOCKS BLESSING, Sept. 3, 2011
#5: DEALING WITH THE DEVIL INCARNATE, Jun. 17, 2011

(Updated December 26, 2011)

Monday, December 19, 2011

THERE’S ALWAYS GOING TO BE A FIGHT


It’s not my intention to only post to my blog once a week, but it’s indicative of how things are going in my world right now. We have a limited time frame to complete an extensive remodel for our church’s new campus (Life Church Bayside), so that’s making things even crazier than normal. We’re hoping to have our first Sunday in the new location on January 15, so at least the end is in sight. In last week’s post (December 12) I shared the first step in leading a self-controlled life: MAKING A DECISION TO DO THE RIGHT THING. I started on this theme with a post on Black Friday (November 25), if you want to trace back and read the previous entries.

Today’s I’d like to delve into the second step we need to take to live a self-controlled life: LIVING BY THE HOLY SPIRIT. This is a long section of scripture, but see what the Apostle Paul writes in Galatians 5:16-25 (New Living Translation):

16 So I advise you to live according to your new life in the Holy Spirit. Then you won't be doing what your sinful nature craves. 17 The old sinful nature loves to do evil, which is just opposite from what the Holy Spirit wants. And the Spirit gives us desires that are opposite from what the sinful nature desires. These two forces are constantly fighting each other, and your choices are never free from this conflict. 18 But when you are directed by the Holy Spirit, you are no longer subject to the law. 19 When you follow the desires of your sinful nature, your lives will produce these evil results: sexual immorality, impure thoughts, eagerness for lustful pleasure, 20 idolatry, participation in demonic activities, hostility, quarreling, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish ambition, divisions, the feeling that everyone is wrong except those in your own little group, 21 envy, drunkenness, wild parties, and other kinds of sin. Let me tell you again, as I have before, that anyone living that sort of life will not inherit the Kingdom of God. 22 But when the Holy Spirit controls our lives, he will produce this kind of fruit in us: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, and self-control. Here there is no conflict with the law. 24 Those who belong to Christ Jesus have nailed the passions and desires of their sinful nature to his cross and crucified them there. 25 If we are living now by the Holy Spirit, let us follow the Holy Spirit's leading in every part of our lives.

As people were coming in to church one Sunday morning, the pastor asked one of the men about his week: “Pastor, it’s been a fight. It’s like there are two dogs living inside me and they’re fighting all the time.” The pastor responded: “Which one is winning, bro?” He answered: “The one I feed, man. The one I feed.” Look again at what Paul writes in V17: “…the Spirit gives us desires that are opposite from what the sinful nature desires. These two forces are constantly fighting each other, and your choices are never free from this conflict.” In experiencing this constant fight between the Spirit and your flesh, some of you have concluded you must not be a very strong Christ follower because the fight within you is so strong. The enemy of your soul has lied to you and said, “If you loved God more and were a better Christian, you wouldn’t struggle with wrong desires the way you do.” Remember, this is a lie! If listened to this lie too much, pay close attention to the truth Paul communicates: “Your choices are never free from this conflict.” You’re not engaged in this conflict because you’re a bad person, you’re in this fight because you want to please the Spirit and do the right things in your life. If you didn’t care about how you’re living your life, or about pleasing God, there would be no fight. You’d just follow your desires and be involved in the activities mentioned in VS19-22. 

So, let me ask you a question: Which one is winning? Flesh or Spirit? When the Spirit is winning it produces “fruit” in our lives and Paul list nine different ones (VS22-23): love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, and self-control. It’s important to make the point that it’s the Spirit which produces this “fruit” and not us acting loving, or acting joyful, or acting peaceful, you get the idea. When the Holy Spirit is in control, there will be fruit produced in our life, beginning with love. When these nine fruits are not being produced it’s evidence that the bad dog is winning the fight and it’s time to “feed” the other dog. With the help of the Holy Spirit, you can win the fight today!

Monday, December 12, 2011

MAKING A DECISION TO DO THE RIGHT THING

In my last blog post (I’M STRONGER. I’M SMARTER. I’M MORE SPIRITUAL.~12.5)  I shared the first step to living self-controlled, which is acknowledging how weak we are in ourselves and how much we need the Holy Spirit’s strength. As we all know, that’s one of those things which is so much easier to write or to tell someone else to do, than to actually apply it to our lives. What seems like happens in many of our lives is we move between total DEPENDENCE upon God (“I desperately need you, Father.”) and a pride-filled INDEPENDENCE (“I’ve got this! I can do this on my own.”). I admire people who are solidly consistent in their daily walk with Christ.

The next step in living self-controlled is making a DECISION to do the right thing. Poet Gil Fausto said: “All good things that happen to us is the result of our own obedience to God.” I think making a strong decision to live self-controlled is extremely important. By a “strong decision,” I’m drawing a distinction between a decision where we figure we’d better make a change in our life but we’re not very committed to the idea, as contrasted with a decision where we know we must get control of our life. A weak decision happens when we’re being pressured by others, so we’re making a change more for their sake or to keep them off our back. This is like the husband who promises his wife he’s going to stop drinking, but he doesn’t really want to stop. He’s doing it so she’ll stop bugging him about it.

There’s no substitute for the right decision made for the right reasons. If you’re a follower of Jesus Christ, the right reason for all of our decisions is to please the Father and to bring honor to Jesus Christ. This is contrary to the psycho mumbo jumbo we hear these days, which encourages people to “do what’s right (or feels right) to you.” 

If there’s an area of your life where you struggle to maintain self-control, celebrate your successes. Celebrate every day of freedom from a life-controlling addiction. Celebrate every pound lost, if your struggle is with weight (Just don’t celebrate by eating a Twinkie!). Celebrate every debt paid off, if you’ve been dominated by overspending. Celebrate every week you’ve planned and executed, if you’ve struggled with time management. Celebrate progress!

In your quest to gain self-control there will be setbacks. It’s most likely the behaviors which contribute to your struggle to maintain self-control are deeply ingrained in your mind [psyche]. It’s going to take a process, lots of persistence and perseverance, and tremendous amount of patience to retrain your brain. When you experience a setback don’t get stuck dwelling on it. If it’s an issue where you believe you’ve sinned against the Lord, offer confession and repentance. Thankfully, God’s grace covers all of our failures. If you “fall”, or more accurately, when you fail, get back up and begin a new path of obedience.



 "Every great person has first learned how to obey, whom to obey, and when to obey."
 *William A. Ward

“Only he who believes is obedient and only he who is obedient believes.”   
*Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Monday, December 5, 2011

I'M STRONGER. I'M SMARTER. I'M MORE SPIRITUAL.


Since my last blog post, SIN MAKES PEOPLE STUPID (November 30), I came across a verse which makes this point without pulling any punches: “Alcohol and prostitution have robbed my people of their brains.” (Hosea 4:11 NLT) It’s important not to limit this verse to alcohol and prostitution as the only sins which rob people of their sensibilities. In the Old Testament alcohol seems to be the drug of choice, while there are few references to drugs. The Bible offers many warnings regarding the dangers of substance use and scores of examples of the devastation which can be caused by their use. The Hebrew word for “prostitution” (Zenuwth) means “fornication, harlotry” but it’s derived from the word, Zanah (zaw-nah’) which means “fornication, adultery, to be unfaithful to God.” This second word covers significantly more activities which have the potential to dull or destroy a person’s sensibilities to the point they make unwise and sinful choices.

What I’d like to do in today’s blog post is look at what we need to do be wise in how we live and expound on how to live self-controlled, which has been the theme of my three previous posts. Somewhere along the way we need a serious reality check when it comes to the true nature of sin. The reason why sin looks so attractive and is so tempting is because it makes a strong appeal to the fleshly part of us. We sin because we want to. We sin because there’s something very pleasurable and satisfying to it. Hebrews 11:25 refers to “enjoying sins pleasures.” (NIRV) If we’re going to live self-controlled lives we need to get to the place where we see sin for what it really is; we need to see beyond “sins pleasures” and see the damage and bondage connected to sin. Until we see the “dark side” of sin it will continue to look attractive and appealing to us. Jeremiah, the prophet who told the truth no one wanted to hear, made this statement: “The human heart is most deceitful and desperately wicked. Who really knows how bad it is? (Jeremiah 17:9 NLT) Our heart is “deceitful” when we know what sin can do, we have knowledge of the devastation of sin in another person’s life, and we still say to ourselves, “That’s not going to happen to me.” We see someone come under sin’s control and we say to ourselves, “I’m stronger. I’m smarter. I’m more spiritual. That’s not going to happen to me.” I’ve met many strong, smart and spiritual people in my life and sin has absolutely kicked their butt! It’s cost them more than they ever planned to pay, taken them further than they ever planned to go, and they found sin harder to overcome than they ever imagined. 

What do Samson, the strongest man, Solomon, the wisest man, David, the godliest man, all have in common? They all caved in to sexual temptation. The first step to living self-controlled is acknowledging how weak we are in ourselves and how much we need the Holy Spirit’s strength. In a way this is similar to the first step in the well-known 12-step programs: “We admitted we were powerless over alcohol—that our lives had become unmanageable.“ On a side note, when I did a Google search for “12-step programs” I entered “10-step.” Isn’t that just like some of us? We think we can skip a few steps and take shortcuts in life.  If you really want to live a self-controlled, Christ-honoring life, you have to first acknowledge how much you need the Holy Spirit.
To be continued…