Faith Matters Podcast

Serving Others

Don't Quit In The DipDay 5Serving Others Proverbs 11:25 teaches us, “Those who refresh others will themselves be refreshed.” We think it’s like young kids in line for the water fountain, where one kid is so thirsty that he’s fighting to get to the front to get a drink to refresh himself. That’s how we approach life a lot of the time. We think to ourselves, I’m thirsty! I’ve got to focus on me. I’ve got to get to the front of the line so I can get a drink. But Proverbs tells us God works differently. God says, if you refresh others, I will personally guarantee your own refreshment.When I have felt seasons of depression try to creep in, my natural tendency was to stay home, close the blinds, and focus on me. But I found that depression broke off when I made up my mind to serve someone every day. I came alive when I got out of the selfie-syndrome dip and chose to prefer others.On the night of the last supper. Jesus and his disciples had gathered together for one final meal. They were celebrating Passover. But this one would be different. Shortly after this meal, Jesus would go to the cross and die to pay for the sins of mankind. The disciples were oblivious. Usually, there would be someone there to wash everyone’s feet. But there wasn’t that night. All of the disciples walked in and made their way to the table. They all would have passed the water basin on the way to their seat at the table. But none of them volunteered to wash feet. Jesus gives communion to them and explains how the bread represents his body that will be broken for them and the cup represents his blood that will be shed for them. Immediately, they ask Jesus, which of them is the greatest. Seriously? With all the emotion in Jesus telling them he must die, and they want to ask him which of them is the greatest. When you’re more concerned with your seat at the table, you will miss what Jesus is trying to teach you. Jesus would get up from the table and wash the feet of each disciple. They couldn’t believe it. Jesus had a seat at the table, but he was willing to get up from the table to serve others. And then tells them, and us, to do the same. Let’s not focus on our seat at the table. Let’s focus on getting up from the table to serve others as Jesus has directed us to. Maybe it’s time for you to get up from the table and get involved in serving at a church. Or for some of you, maybe it’s time to lead a small group for other people to be able to come to Jesus. What about signing up to serve in some capacity with your city or to go on a missions trip? See people the way Jesus sees them and find a way to serve them in your city. Jesus served us and was giving us a pattern. He said, “What I have done for you, I want you to do for others.” Serve others. Add value, period. And you watch as you begin to experience true fulfillment in loving people to Jesus.

Uprooting Bitterness

Day 4Don't Quit In The DipUprooting BitternessThe Bible describes bitterness as a bitter root. Have you ever looked at your backyard and seen some weeds growing? You think to yourself, I should deal with that, but you don’t. The weeds are so small anyway, but after you procrastinate for a week, it seems like they’ve grown to be six feet tall. What started off as something that could have been easily dealt with has now become Jack and the beanstalk in your backyard.The longer you let a weed grow, the harder it is to get rid of. If you’ve ever tried to pull out a big root, you know it’s backbreaking work, and many times you end up breaking it off and you think you’re good. You think, Phew! Glad that’s over. I’m done with it! Outta sight, outta mind. But, if you don’t get the entire root, there’s a whole lot more going on beneath the surface that you can’t see—and when it grows back, you’ll have to dig up more than you were anticipating because now you have a jungle of overgrowth to tackle as its roots have spread.If you don’t completely uproot bitterness now, those roots will go down so deep they will latch on and interweave their way into every relationship you have. Bitterness will affect your view of everything you see. And it will keep you from the destiny God has for you to walk in. Offended people never make it to their destiny.It’s a trap! Why give somebody or a particular situation that much power over your life? It’s been three years. It’s messed with you for ten years. It’s kept you from enjoying life for twenty years. It’s stolen your joy for thirty-two years. It’s kept you from so much in life, and now you feel like you can’t move on. Why not determine today not to allow it to rob you of one more day of your life? Better yet, refuse to get offended ever again. It’s not saying what they did was okay. It wasn’t. That’s why it hurt. With God’s help, you can do this. Most of us have a hard time forgiving because we don’t want to give them anything. I want to share with you a picture God gave me to help me think differently about forgiveness.I’m on top of a tall skyscraper in San Francisco. I have a long, thick rope tied around my waist. At the other end of the rope is a piano that has just been pushed off the side of the building. It’s only a matter of seconds before all the slack is gone and the piano pulls me over the edge. I really want to hold on to the piano, but I’ll die if I do. See, most of us have a hard time forgiving others because, in our minds, we don’t want to give them anything, but forgiveness is not about giving them something. It’s releasing something. It’s me, untying the rope from around my waist, choosing life over death, because if I don’t, that piano will pull me over the edge.That might be where you are. That bitterness is pulling you over the edge. It’s killing you. It’s hindering you. It’s keeping you from living the life Jesus came to bring. You might say, “But theydon’t deserve it!” Well, neither did we, but I’m really grateful God didn’t wait till we deserved it. You can’t focus on living when you’re just trying not to be pulled over the edge. So, untie the rope and release it. Release the offense. Release your pain. Release feelings of revenge and experience the freedom that comes through complete forgiveness. Hebrews 12:15 offers us this command: “See to it that no one falls short of the grace of God and that no bitter root grows up to cause trouble and defile many.”

Overcoming Fear

Overcoming FearThere’s a lot that people are afraid of in life. Terrorism. Heights. Spiders. Confined spaces. Public speaking. Being alone. Fear is the unpleasant, powerful, and often debilitating emotion we feel when we sense or anticipate danger. When we are in a dip, fear is not a faithful friend; it’s a ferocious foe. And for some of us, fear is the name of the pit we live in. I know. I’ve been there. I was deep in the dip of fear for a long time, and I couldn’t see a way out. As a kid, I worried about everything. By second grade, I had developed a stomach ulcer.You’d think I’d just grow out of it. But you don’t grow out of fear. Fear is a spirit. If anything, you just grow older and switch fears. For me it led to panic attacks. Chest pains. Emergency hospital visits. Stomach pains that got progressively worse, to the point where I’d be doubled over, on the ground, in the fetal position for hours. There was nothing that could bring relief. It led to something called Ulcerative Colitis dropping down to a hundred and twenty-five pounds. When I say it dominated my life, I’m saying that it controlled me. It dictated the direction of my life...for my first twenty-five years.I’m thankful to report that God healed me, and I haven’t had a pain in seventeen years. Let me tell you the key to breaking out of the dip of fear. I broke fear not by trying to get more bold. It was getting more of God’s love. Focusing on and experiencing more of God’s love. Fear cannot stay where God’s love resides. I began to focus on the love of God. Sing songs about His love. Read scriptures about His love. And after a while that spirit of fear broke off my life and it can break off of yours too.Depression and fear do not have to be a life sentence. You can climb out of the dip of fear and walk in God’s freedom.

Simplicity of Prayer

The Simplicity Of PrayerWhat do you do when you don’t know what to do? What do you do when the dream inside of you is not matching the reality that’s in front of you? It’s going to sound cliché and elementary, but oftentimes we overcomplicate things. We’re willing to try the newest strategy, follow the latest teaching, hop on the trendiest spiritual bandwagon, but we roll our eyes at the basics. So, what do we do when the dream inside of us doesn’t match the reality in front of us? Pray.So many people feel awkward praying. Most people, when asked to pray publicly, would rather die. They say, “I’m not good at praying.” What does that even mean? Can you talk? Great! That’s all prayer is: talking with God. Why are we so intimidated by prayer? I’ll tell you why. It’s performance anxiety. We get scared because either we are trying to impress people when we pray, or we attempt to sound like someone else when we pray. God is not impressed when we are trying to impress. But He is impressed with honesty, transparency and faith. Prayer is simply talking to God. If you are doing that, whether privately or publicly, you can never go wrong.How’s your prayer life? What time could you set aside every day to talk with God?

Don’t Quit in The Dip

DON'T QUIT IN THE DIPWhat do you do when you don’t know what to do? The place where people give up is what I call, “The Dip.” When you’re in the dip, you can see where you want to be, but no matter how hard you try, it seems you can’t get there. You begin to lose hope and doubt you’ll ever reach it. The dip is where your dream is just out of reach and you feel stuck. We all have a dream, but there is always a dip before you get there. Sadly, most people give up in the dip. But successful people don’t quit in the dip and they’re the ones who see their dream fulfilled. None of us have the perfectly filtered life we present on social media, right? Every person, even the ones who seem to have everything together, has at least one area in life that isn’t what they want it to be. It’s frustration. It’s hopelessness. It’s where anxiety and fear have crept in. It’s where giving up not only seems reasonable, it seems like your only option.The dip can be your health. Maybe it’s your career. You know there’s more in you to express, but there seems to be some invisible ceiling keeping you from reaching your potential or landing that dream job. So, you lower your expectations and trade in your hi-def dream for a low-res version of reality.What about your marriage? You’re giving your all, but things are not getting better and you’re even contemplating divorce. It could be that you’re single and looking for a spouse, but you just can’t find Mr. or Mrs. Right and you’re tempted to settle for Mr. or Mrs. Right Now instead.The dip is also where you might stand, wondering, If God has a wonderful plan for my life, why is He so slow to reveal it? Does He even see me here in this place? It feels like you have one piece of a ten-thousand-piece puzzle and don’t know where to begin.But let me encourage you. When we are ready to quit in the dip, we have a God who is just getting started! God doesn’t see as we see! We see impossible, but He sees possibility. We see financial ruin, but He sees a path to blessing. We see the diagnosis, but He sees the way to healing. God sees the end from the beginning, when all we see is our past and our present. We see a dip, but He sees another opportunity to show up and work through us and show us just how amazing He really is!I’m praying we all begin to see from God’s perspective and use God’s strength to reawaken motivation when we’re tempted to throw in the towel.Where have you given up? Where are you considering giving up?

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