Life Project Blog

I will exalt you, my God the King;
    I will praise your name for ever and ever.
Every day I will praise you
    and extol your name for ever and ever.

Psalm 145:1-2

Have you ever just sat back and considered everything God has done in your life? For most of us, we don’t take the time to do this often enough; I know I don’t.  It may be hard to get started, as thoughts about the here and now rush though our minds, as the distractions and demands of everyday life make so much noise that it’s hard to think. Yet as we continue to ponder, as we begin to relax, God’s doings begin to enter our thoughts, and before too long, they push the distractions away.

We might even move on to ponder and reflect upon what God has done in His Creation; the wonder of all of it, its grandeur so magnificent.

When we invest a little time and attention in this way, it isn’t easy to remain silent, is it?

Our God is so amazing, so awesome, so powerful, so loving; how can we think on such things and not enthusiastically give Him praise?

Funny thing about exaltation; once you get started, it’s hard to stop. Imagine what it would be like if we did this every day; don’t you suppose that every day would be as amazing as the things God does in our lives? Oh yes, I bet they would be; can you guess why?

If we began each day reflecting upon all that God is and does in our lives, we would be seeing all that He does each day as we go along, and each day we would be giving Him enthusiastic praise, and when you do that, it’s hard to stop… and each day would then become a day of praise.

If you are thinking about buying a green car, you will suddenly notice that there are many green cars on the road; if you are thinking about buying a new green Toyota, you’ll start to see them everywhere. If you go out on a Saturday night looking for trouble, you’ll be calling a friend to bail you out of jail on Sunday morning.

We almost always find what we are looking for.

I see a lot of posts that have the word “sin” in their titles, I hear a lot of people talking about sin in others, sometimes I hear people talking about the sin in their lives. Why are so many focused on sin?

We almost always find what we are looking for.

Do we look for the sin in TV shows or movies or books? It isn’t hard to find. Are we looking for sin in culture; that isn’t hard to find. Are we looking for sin in other people; that’s pretty easy to spot as well, and to be sure, they can see our sin just as easily.

We almost always find what we are looking for.

The Pharisees were the most righteous of all men, and it would appear from the record of Scripture that they were on the lookout for sin, and they found it everywhere in their midst, and they were very quick to point it out, but when the Son of God was in their midst, they missed Him entirely, preferring instead to find sin; that unending search for the sin in their midst was their downfall.

We almost always find what we are looking for; nice going guys…

Paul didn’t tell us we should be obsessed with sin:

Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God.

Colossians 3:1

We almost always find what we are looking for.

Maybe I’m wrong; maybe I’m crazy.

You might say I’ve gone soft on sin; you might say I’m a sinner.

It could be I’m old and feeble; It could be I’m out of touch.

But if we find what we are looking for, wouldn’t it be a bad idea to be looking for sin?

If we find what we are looking for, wouldn’t it be a better idea to be looking for the things that are from above? If we find what we are looking for, wouldn’t it be a great idea to be looking for His presence?

Finally, all of you, be like-minded, be sympathetic, love one another, be compassionate and humble.

1Peter 3:8

A person who is always right carries a great burden with them; even more so if they know everything. Do you know anybody like that − no matter how wrong they might be they are always right? Even when they don’t know something, they have an opinion and you’d better agree; I don’t know about you, but folks like that just wear me out!

Harmony, compassion, sympathy, humility; these may not always come naturally, but they are empowering. These attributes will set you free from always having to know everything, of always having to be right, not to mention the arguments that follow.

The older I get, the more I come to realize that having the approval of others in everything that comes up is really not that important. What does matter is whether I am a person who enables others to find the way of love, to build relationships of respect and trust, relationships that build the Body of Christ. Indeed, what really matters comes down to one simple question: When I encounter other people, can they see the love of Christ at work in me?

I thought I’d share a little story with you today about two best friends…

Jack and Tom were best friends all through school. They played ball together, had adventures together… they were inseparable. When the day came for their graduation from high school, they both went to the railroad office near the place where they lived and filled out job applications. A few days later they were both interviewed and hired, and the following Monday they reported together for their first day of work.

Yes, Jack and Tom were the best of friends.

As time went by, both of the boys married their high school sweethearts and began families, and for some time they remained close friends. One day however, Tom was promoted to a new job in another town, and they saw less and less of each other after that. You know how it is, children come along, family is top priority, but it has to be balanced with your job and other responsibilities, and your youthful friends go their own ways, and before you know it, you’ve pretty much lost track of them. So it was with Jack and Tom.

Jack and Tom had been working for about 35 years when they met once again. Jack was a section boss near his home town. A section boss is an important man, responsible for the safe upkeep and operation of a section of the road. One day, he received notice that the new president of the railroad was coming by to inspect Jack’s section. When the day for the inspection came, a big black limo pulled up at the section house, and the new president got out of the car.

“How have you been Jack?” Tom asked, holding out his hand.

“Pretty fair sir” was Jack’s reply as he shook hands with his old best friend.

They went through the normal process of the inspection without a great deal of conversation. Tom asked a couple of questions, Jack gave a couple of answers and the time came for Tom to be on his way. Just as he was about to get into the car, Jack said, “Hey Tom, can I ask you something?” It was the first time that day that he hadn’t called Tom ‘sir’.

“Sure Jack, what is it?”

“Well, we grew up in the same town together, we were best friends; we even started our jobs together. How on earth did you go all the way up to president of the whole railroad, and I only made it to section boss?”

With the slightest hint of a smile, Tom said, “Jack, when you started here right after we graduated, didn’t you go to work for the paycheck?”

“Well sure I did; I needed a job just like you, Tom.”

“Yeah Jack, I needed a job all right, but you went to work for a paycheck; I went to work for the railroad. It was great to see you again Jack, please give my love to Helen and the kids,” and with that Tom shook Jack’s hand and got into his limo and drove away.

A great many people work for a paycheck, but only a few work for their Company, as any successful business person can attest. As I write this, I wonder if the same phenomenon happens when we accept God’s grace through faith in Christ. Can it be that some people accept God’s grace for salvation and forgiveness of their sins, while others do so to follow Jesus Christ?

Surely God is my help;
the Lord is the one who sustains me.

Let evil recoil on those who slander me;
in your faithfulness destroy them.

Psalm 54:4-5

It doesn’t sound like David was having a good day when he wrote this; he was under attack from his enemies as it happens. Most of us aren’t on the run from assassins or cut-throats, but there are times in this life when it seems like we are under assault and feel overwhelmed by our circumstances.

One thing we can take from these verses is that David knew where his help would come from, it would come from God. The only problem was that David didn’t know when God would act or why God didn’t set things right immediately.

But he did know that God would have his back.

Like David, we don’t know God’s timing, nor do we know God’s reasoning for His timing. In fact, other than a bunch of theological abstractions, I can’t even tell you why God allows so much trouble in our lives…

Yet we do know that God has our backs.

In difficult times, God is our Rock, our strength, and in such circumstances our relationships with Him take on a whole new significance for most of us as a source of strength and hope, transcending the problems of this life.

Oh, what an awesome God we have!

Oh yes, and He’s awesome when things are going smoothly too.

For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.

Colossians 1:19-20

Leading up to these verses Paul gave a list of attributes that he attributed to Christ, and here, as a way of summing up, he goes the next step and puts all of the fullness of Jesus Christ into perspective.  Notice that God was “pleased” to have His own fullness residing in Jesus, and to have Jesus reconcile all to Himself. If you think about it, if there was reconciliation, there must first be a conflict…

We know that there was indeed a conflict, a conflict that engulfed all Creation the moment that Adam entered into sin way back in Genesis 3. It’s a funny thing, but for most of us, we don’t really think of sin the way we should, for we tend to think of it as a violation of some sort of rule or ordinance. Yet sin is much more than a simple violation; it’s rebellion, rebellion against God. So here we are, God was pleased indeed to place all His fullness in the Person of Jesus and to have Jesus establish reconciliation on the cross, for in doing so He paid the entire cost of the rebellion: There is now peace between Man and God.

Why should He do that?

Love.

His love was so great that He placed His fullness into His Son and sent His Son to make peace with humanity; that’s quite a thing to ponder wouldn’t you say? I realize that this statement doesn’t pay the bills, nor does it solve all the problems we encounter in this life, but it does something much greater than simply taking away problems and circumstances. Instead, it transcends the problems of the day-to-day and empowers us to see greater things, to set higher aspirations so that the complications of the here and now are put into their proper perspective.

When you come right down to it, what God has done for us through Jesus Christ puts the hassles of life where they belong… on the low priority list.