Help In Understanding the Human Christian Experience

Help In Understanding the Human Christian Experience

Here are some quotes often found on success or excellence web sites. Would you read through these and see which ones ring true for your life? Make a note of which statement capture your inner ideas of worth, success and value.

o    "The moment of victory is much too short to live for that and nothing else." – Martina Navratilova

o    "Good is the enemy of great." – Jim Collins

o    Whatever the mind of man can conceive and believe, it can achieve. –Napoleon Hill

o    The mind is everything. What you think you become.  –Buddha

o    Winning isn’t everything, but wanting to win is. –Vince Lombardi

o    Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it.  Boldness has genius, power and magic in it. –Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

o    We become what we think about. –Earl Nightingale

o    "There are basically two types of people. People who accomplish things, and people who claim to have accomplished things. The first group is less crowded." – Mark Twain

o    "We want not only to live but to have something to live for. For some people this means to pursue excellence through sport." – Terry Orlick, Ph.D.

o    "Victory with honor and integrity is the real goal of sport. Sometimes it happens that others are better than you. I could never beat Carl Lewis in a hundred-yard dash, but my victory might be in running faster today than I did yesterday." – Don Sparks

o    "Excellence is not an act...but a habit." – Aristotle

o    "Victory has a hundred fathers, and defeat is an orphan." – John F. Kennedy

o    "Victory belongs to the most persevering." – Napoleon

o    "Success is getting up more than you fall down." – Unknown

o    "The toughest thing about success is that you've got to keep on being a success." – Irving Berlin

o    "Success is not how high and fast you reach the top, but how high and fast you bounce back when you hit the bottom." - Unknown

o    "Winners are not born, they are self-made." – Pat Summitt

Ok, that was step one. Now I want you to read a passage of Scripture and think about the life of the person, Eve, in that passage. Eve is in paradise, the garden of God. She is living there with the two loves of her life. Eve is a wonderful sinless person, full of all that God desired her to be. Yet God placed a test, a temptation in the middle of the garden for Eve to encounter. Here is the passage.

Gen 3:1-6  Now the serpent was more crafty than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said to the woman, "Indeed, has God said, 'You shall not eat from any tree of the garden'?"  (2)  The woman said to the serpent, "From the fruit of the trees of the garden we may eat;  (3)  but from the fruit of the tree which is in the middle of the garden, God has said, 'You shall not eat from it or touch it, or you will die.'"  (4)  The serpent said to the woman, "You surely will not die!  (5)  "For God knows that in the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil."  (6)  When the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was desirable to make one wise, she took from its fruit and ate; and she gave also to her husband with her, and he ate.

What do you think was going on in Eve? Did she fear she was inadequate and in need of more, more of the best things in life? Did Eve start to feel like a looser? Did she see that her life had limits, that she lacked things that were good and delightful? Did Eve feel like God should allow her to have all the desires of her heart fulfilled, did she wonder how a good and loving God would withhold things from her, things she knew would help her live a fulfilled life? We know she “fell,” but what was the reason for the fall, what was happening in her inner being?

What if there is a demon from hell assigned to torment the earth with the idea that there are no limits to human possibilities? What if this demon is old, tormenting people since the beginning? What if the lack of contentment, peace, and joy in our world is because of our desire to be and have more and more? What if the church is full of conflict, strife, judgement and selfish ambition masquerading as serving others?

If you were to counsel me about life and happiness, would you tell me that life is best when we have all that we desire? Do we tell our children, our friends that their life is worth less because they are not seeing the desires of their heart fulfilled? Do we ever question where these desires come from? When was the last time we stood and gave thanks for our homes, our jobs, our family and our limits?

As I have been studying and writing on temptation for about a year now. I see the power of discontentment, envy, and greed to discourage and destroy people and the church. The more we neglect the limits God places upon us, both in culture and in the church, the more we fall. 

Jesus lived most of His life in hiddenness. When He did go public, He had a season of huge crowds but walked away when they desired to make Him king (CEO, President). Jesus did not do everything that He could do, but instead did everything the Father intended for Him to do. Being full of joy was a result of living in His limits and boundaries. Knowing how, to whom and when to surrender up His life was also a part of living with limits. Few today can let an opportunity pass, allow another to advance above themselves or stand by while someone of lesser skills or knowledge takes the lead over them. We are a culture full of feasting on the tree of knowledge of good and evil and calling in “American Christianity.” 

"The Emotionally Healthy Church" is a book  I am presently reading. Many of the insights can help us move beyond cultural ministry and into Kingdom ministry. If this blog connected with you, you might want to check out this book or other resources alone the "Emotional Healthy" line.