There are two directions in which you can compare your life. You can compare yourself to those above you or those below you. 

Let me clarify. You can look at your life and see how it aligns with people who have more than you or those who have less than you. This happens in every facet of life.

I can look at my marriage, children, house, clothes, vehicles, toys, and finances and then at my neighbor with a better-looking spouse, more intelligent children, more square feet, a new SUV, a boat, and a big bank account. I can feel disappointed in my situation. This can lead me to a sense of discouragement, failure, less satisfaction, and ingratitude. It can even push me toward evil in my heart as I begin to covet my neighbor’s things and break the tenth commandment.

The other option is to look at people who have less. They may not be married, even though they want to be, have no children, struggle to pay rent, thrift store clothes, broken down vehicles, no toys, and an empty bank account. Suddenly, everything you have seems like more. It can make you be grateful for what you have and realize how blessed you are. Now, be careful; this can also be harmful as it can also make you prideful and feel more valuable than others. 

One reason many people feel dissatisfied with their lives is because they are constantly comparing up. Someone else has more or better things in their life. The truth is that you have so much more than so many others, especially on a global scale. 

God has blessed each one of us abundantly. It is easy to forget that when the Joneses have so much more.

The old question is, “How do you eat an elephant?”

The answer is, “One bite at a time.”

The question for you might be … “How do I know my Bible better? How do I have a better marriage? How do I lead my children to Jesus? How do I become more generous? How do I increase my influence?” You may want to know how to do this enormous thing right now. It feels like there is no way you could ever accomplish this massive feat.

The only way to do it is to take one tiny bite after another until you reach your goal.

Today, you can do one small thing that will lead you to the life that God desires for you. Then you can do something else tomorrow, one thing the day after, and so on.

Stop dreaming. Stop making excuses. Stop blaming your life situation on being busy.

Make time for one thing, and you can accomplish almost anything.

The Church building is not the house of God. 

In the Old Testament, the temple was the house of God. It contained the ark of the covenant and was the very presence of God among his people. The Psalms are full of statements about the excitement of going to the Lord’s house. When someone went to Jerusalem, it was a big deal, as they would be able to go to the temple and worship. 

Christians, unfortunately, have adopted the same language, and I fear the same concepts. They will often call the Church building the House of the Lord. A worship leader says happily, “Isn’t it good to be in the house of God?” And people will respond with cheers, applause, and “Amen.”

The Church building is never referred to in the New Testament in this way. The Lord does not live in buildings made by human hands. In fact, a few passages give us a completely different understanding. Hebrews 3:6 states, “and we are his house,” in reference to Christians. The Apostle Peter, in his letter to the Church, writes, “You also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house (1 Peter 2:5). The Apostle Paul will tell the believers in Corinth that “You are God’s temple (1 Corinthians 3:16). Elsewhere he will call individual believers’ body’s “the temple of God” as well. 

When people come to follow Jesus, they are filled with the Holy Spirit, and their body becomes a vessel for God. Then, when the group of believers get together, they are the house of God. A spiritual house where the Lord reigns and works. Christians have access to God without going to Jerusalem, having a physical temple, and without a priest to intercede. 

Christians need no longer say, “Isn’t it good to be in the house of the Lord,” they need only say, “Isn’t it good to BE the house of the Lord.”  

It is easy to believe things about ourselves despite all evidence to the contrary.

We might think we are a great spouse, but you cannot remember the last time you spent an evening together in happiness.

We might believe that we are committed Church members, but when the numbers are tracked, we attend worship less than half of the Sundays in a year.

We might have strong convictions about how good of a friend we are to others, and yet we have no real friendships, and the ones we do enter never last very long.

We might have no doubt that we are generous without ever auditing our books. 

It is easy to fall into this gap between what I believe about myself and what the evidence truly reveals. Self-evaluation can never be based on personal feelings; they will always lead us astray.

One way to grow as a person is to do a regular audit, at least annually, of my beliefs about myself versus the hard facts. No one wants to expose their failures, but it is only by knowing reality that we can begin to make changes to improve.

The man interviewed on the podcast made a statement, and I stopped dead in my tracks. He said exactly what I had thought. He articulated a feeling that has haunted my mind for years.

Whenever this happens, it causes me to stop and thank the Lord that I am not alone. 

Reading the Bible has the same effect on me most days. I read of one of the Biblical characters and think, “I thought I was the only one.” It could be Jonah running from the Lord, Abraham lying about his wife to avoid conflict, Samson or David struggling with lust, Paul being rejected by former friends, or Jesus having his sermons ignored. Whatever situation I find myself in, there is a story in the Bible that articulates what I am thinking and feeling. 

One of the truly great things about being a Christian is knowing we are never alone. Someone, somewhere on the pages of scripture, has felt and thought the way we do, and there is a lesson we can learn from them. Reading the Bible is how we learn about God and ourselves, but it reaches a new level when both happen simultaneously.

Regularly, I preface something I will say with, “I don’t mean this mean.”

A direct, blunt statement of truth usually follows that introduction.

It is a habit I have developed over a lifetime of ministry as the result of telling people the truth they did not want to hear. I have found that whenever you give someone the unfiltered, straightforward truth, it is usually not received well. People respond by calling me a jerk, mean-spirited, and even unchristian.

As followers of Jesus, we are called to speak the truth in love (Ephesians 4:15, 25-32). This one instruction is challenging for most of us. Once we tell someone the truth, and they respond with fury and vitriol, we back off from doing it again. 

The side effect is that it is extremely difficult to get people who care about us to tell us the truth again. They gloss over our shortcomings and make excuses for our poor behavior. Giving half-truths and sugarcoated honesty is much more pleasant than going through that frustration again. 

If we have someone who will speak the truth in love to us, treat them as more valuable than gold. We know that they don’t mean it in a mean way. 

I heard a person who buys and sells antiques for a living say, “You are always paying for your education.” He meant you can pay someone to teach you, take a class, or buy a book to learn more. The other option is to make mistakes and learn the hard way.

In his profession, once you overpay for an item and lose money, you will not forget it. Hopefully, you will learn your lesson and not repeat the same mistake again. He hates that he lost money, but he learned a valuable lesson in the process. 

Either way, he is paying for his education. 

Honestly, that is true for all of us. Unfortunately, often, we do not pay with cash or credit; we pay in other ways.

God has instructed us how to live, and we can learn from his word through study, prayer, community, and time invested in discipleship. The other option is understanding his will is best for us through pain, suffering, and heartbreak. We can learn through guilt, remorse, and shame. We can learn through embarrassment, public humiliation, and scandal.    

There are two options: invest time and energy into becoming the person God desires or learn the hard lessons of disobedience. 

Either way, a good education will cost you.    

This coming Sunday, numerous people will rise, shower, dress, and drive off to sit in a Church worship program. Many of them treat it like “punching a clock” at work. They arrive there on Sundays and put in their time for God.

They want to go to heaven. Some want to make their family happy. So they get up and put in their time for the man upstairs with the hope that one day, they will arrive before God, and he will say, “Why should I let you into my heaven?” Then they can reply, “I have put in the time.” The idea is that the number of hours spent on Sunday, when added together, should receive the paycheck of heaven. Each and every time they go, they add it to their tally sheet and possibly make a few people happy at the same time. It is a win-win, so they endure it when they would rather be elsewhere.   

I want you to know this is a highly flawed view of the Church. Going to Church is not something we do to get right with God. Instead, the Church is a community of people who are made right by the work of Jesus. God’s grace saves the people there through Jesus’ death on the cross. Their only plea before God on the day of judgment is that Jesus’ work is sufficient for our eternal salvation. 

A group of people who believe that join together each week to sing their praises to God, commune with their Savior, connect to one another in authentic relationships, and grow in their faith. The Church is an extension of faith and not the sum total of it.

We don’t go to Church to get right with God, but for someone right with God, the Church is a great place to be for their spiritual health. 

Specifically, a lesson on the history of Israel found in the Bible. To understand prophecy properly, we need to accurately understand Old Testament history. 

We must be aware of four major events in the story of God’s people.

1. The Exodus and the Possession of Canaan. The land had been promised to Abraham and his descendants. After years of slavery in Egypt, they finally left to take possession of the land. Because of their lack of faith, it takes forty years before Joshua leads the people into the land, and it becomes theirs, fulfilling the promise made to their forefathers.

2. The Captivity of Israel. God had told the people that his protection of them was conditional based on their obedience to the law. They did not keep it and were eventually taken captive, destroying Jerusalem. First, they were taken to Babylon, and then Medo-Persia captured it. The people of Israel would spend 70 years away from the land of their inheritance. Jeremiah sat and wept (Lamentations) as all this happened.

3. Return and Restoration. Eventually, the people would return to reestablish their kingdom and Jerusalem. They rebuilt a temple and started trying to follow the Old Testament and its laws again. This story is recorded in the books of Ezra and Nehemiah.

4. The Coming of the Messiah. While this part of the story continues onto the pages of the New Testament, the Messiah lives under the law until it is fulfilled in his death and resurrection. This action fulfilled the work of physical Israel (Acts 13:32; 28:20).

The purpose of the nation of Israel was to lead God’s people to the Messiah and establish a new spiritual kingdom of Israel. In this kingdom, the law is fulfilled, the veil has been torn in two, the people are the temple of God, there is no longer any separation between Jews and Gentiles, the people have their hearts circumcised (Rom. 2:28-29), and they live together as a “chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, and God’s special possession.” (1 Peter 2:9)

The followers of Jesus live in a special time today. We are no longer connected to a land but are bound to God in Jesus Christ. 

I thank God for the nation of Israel and pray that their people come to know Jesus as their Savior. He is their only hope … and ours.

People have been asking me all kinds of Biblical and theological questions lately, spurred on by the headlines, personal reading, popular teachers, and a host of conversations. People want to know what the Bible actually teaches. 

While I love these discussions, I cannot seem to teach fast enough to stay ahead of the poor interpretation, popular garbage, and jumbled ideas. The people who do see through all the junk are asking me for advice on how to teach their friends and family so they do not fall prey to some of this false teaching.

This is true today more than ever. In the history of humanity, there has never been more unbiblical and often ungodly teaching available. The internet allows people to share whatever they like, and I enjoy that, but we need a filter system to keep out the bad.

Here are a couple of quick questions you NEED to be asking.

1. Is this REALLY in the Bible? Don’t trust anyone who doesn’t give you a Biblical reference. Saying, “It says in the Bible” or “Like the Bible says,” can mean the statements are often far from any Bible passage. For example, “As the good book says, ‘The Lord helps those who help themselves.'” That is not the Bible; that is Ben Franklin. 

2. What is the context of that passage? Whenever you read a Bible verse or two, try to go back and read the whole paragraph, chapter, and book. The biggest mistake is taking passages out of context and making the Bible say anything people want. For example, Jeremiah 29:11 is spoken to people going into captivity for 70 plus years. It is not about a teenager graduating high school. 

3. What was the Author’s Intended Meaning? The person who wrote down that book of the Bible as God inspired them had a specific audience in mind. What did the passage mean to them? Proper interpretation is vital to understanding the Bible correctly. For example, if the Old Testament prophet talked to the people being taken captive by Babylon about one day returning to Israel, that is not about the end times. 

4. Where did my convictions come from? Don’t form beliefs until you have read the Bible (and done the last two things). I have started discussing topics with people and realized a few minutes later that they had never actually read their Bible. They heard a TV preacher and maybe read a book that formed their opinion and nothing more. For example, don’t talk to me about Revelation and the end times until you have read the first 65 books of the Bible.

Please start with these basics. I am trying to write and preach as fast as possible, along with pointing people to reliable resources. But if everyone read their Bible with an eye for context and the original meaning, it would benefit everyone.