Most people are kind to me. Each week, someone will tell me how much they were blessed by the sermon or how one of my blogs spoke to their situation in life. They will share how a devotion or a lesson was instrumental in their thinking and walk with God.

My secret to success is simple:  Keep showing up.

I have committed to producing my best work every single day. That means I show up when I don’t feel like it. I write and work even when I would rather be someplace else. I am always in the office early and have my mind working. I sometimes preach and publish items I know are not as good as I hoped, but I keep putting them out there daily and weekly.

One amazing part of working for God is that if you keep teaching, preaching, writing, and talking, God will take one of those interactions and use it for good.

Having an impact for God takes less skill than one might think; it is more about doing the work over and over again. You keep showing up until God shows up to use your efforts.

She loved the book and could not speak highly enough about its impact on her life. Then, four weeks later, during a similar conversation, she stated how she did not like the book. 

What happened?

During that time, she had talked with several other people who I knew disliked it. Her opinion changed because of her friends. Her attitude went from good to bad, all because of the people she spoke with about her reading.

There is a warning in this experience. Whenever I have a bad attitude toward someone or something, I have to ask myself, “Do I feel this way because of my own thoughts and encounters, or am I adopting my feelings from someone else?”

But I really want to flip this concept over and see the good in our adopted attitudes. You also have the power to influence the people around you for good. If you always speak positively about that person, others may adopt the same attitude. If you speak well of that place or that activity, you can sway the emotions of others. If you shine a positive light, others will begin seeing what you see. 

I like venting my frustration to others and forget how it impacts their views. Each one of us can use that same power for good and bring joy instead of gloom.  

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.