As a man thinks in his heart...

Recently I was challenged by my wife with this thought from Scripture; "As a man thinks so is he." In other words, what we think on affects our entire life. If we think on negative things, if we let our mind dwell on our unhappiness or difficult circumstances, our whole soul and demeanor will be affected. But conversely, if we meditate on positive things we will be affected in a positive way.

As I've considered that, the Lord has reminded me that himself gives us such advice. For instance in Colossians Paul says, "Set your mind on things above [in heaven] not on the things that are on earth." In Philippians he says, "Whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, let your mind dwell on these things."

In other words, what I think about greatly affects how I am. If I think on the negative things in life, what I don't have or what's not going my way or how I wish things might be then the result will be at least a droopy heart. I was reminded of this in a home group meeting the other week when I was lamenting all the negative things I was feeling about church and a relatively new Christian began to talk about all the positive. I was immediately convicted of how I had set my mind on things below, not above; things negative, not positive.

On another front, how we believe God in our heart with our mind affects us as well. We need to believe God for His best. We often want what we want. We believe we know the best for us and when God says no, we are not only disappointed we are angry. Often God has told us his will and we do everything we can to circumvent it instead of to graciously and humbly accepting what he calls us to do.

Lord, help me set my mind to things above. Help me believe you and trust you. I don't want to be negative or discontent. I want to allow your grace to shape my life.

Why?

Why does God move in revival? I have been asking myself that question for many months now. Is it due to some formula that believers finally get right like "x" number of believers praying "x" number of times a week? Is there a key we must turn that we find because God gives it to us or we stumble on it by accident? Often we pray like that. We say, "Lord, we know you want to send us revival more than we want it!" I struggle with that concept or thought. Or is it that we must achieve a level of holiness that puts us over the top and God rewards us with revival? Somehow none of those thoughts resonate with my spirit.

The bottom line is I don't know why God chooses to send revival to whom he chooses when he chooses. I just know that as we read history, all the great awakenings of the past have been preceded by people praying. So I think we should continue to pray. That is all I know to do is pray and call on God to help us. Maybe in a season of his choosing he might see fit to grant us what we ask.

Lord, please hear my cry. It is a cry for revival in my own heart. It is a prayer of need. Like Keith Green once sang,

My eyes are dry
My faith is old
My heart is hard
My prayers are cold
And I know how I ought to be
Alive to You and dead to me.

That is me. I need you to help me. Holy Spirit, please see fit to soften my heart and send the rains of refreshing to me and others. Please. Amen.

How to judge an elder

I've discovered over the years that it is easy to judge an elder. He must be perfect! (Please not the sarcasm!) Or at least he must measure up to some level of perfection that we imagine in our mind. It's amazing to me how tough we are on others but how lenient we are on ourselves. It's like Jesus said, we are so good at getting the speck out of our brother's eye but we can't see the log in our own. So we look at an area of weakness in our brother's life and we judge him as unfit, unqualified when we ourselves don't measure up and most of the time don't care. We justify it and say, "Hey, it's not me who wants to serve as an elder."

I guess the most difficult part in it all is that those who would judge a man unqualified to serve, will not lift a finger to help him. They will judge him unfit but they will not go and gently say, "Can I talk to you about something." So not only do we judge elders by a very strict standard, I believe even an unbiblical standard, we then do nothing to help them meet our expectations. How is that love? How is that God's will?

Lord, forgive us. We're like the Pharisees who put a load on people that the people can't carry and the Pharisees themselves didn't even try to carry. And then we won't even lift a finger to help a man grow. Change us, Father.