A Good Olympic Example
The Olympic games are sure to inspire and motivate millions. This is the first of six posts related to the games.
A person who is a role model is a living life example. From previous Olympics came future competitors today.
Twenty-four years ago a little eight year old girl named Brooke Bennett watched the American swimmer Janet Evans win a gold medal. Right then she was motivated and resolved to strive for the same. Brooke Bennett won her gold medal in Sydney and no one was more proud than her model Janet Evans.
Mike Marsh, Barcelona Gold Medalist in the 200 meters, tells of a friend who was a coach urging him to participate in track without success. He finally motivated him to watch one of the world’s greatest athletes run on TV. Mike watched Carl Lewis and was fired with excitement. He was motivated by Carl’s example as no one had ever been able to motivate him. That motivation created an Olympic Gold Medalist in the person of Mike Marsh.
You may lack motivation for life. You may be without motivation to achieve your best in life. If you study the life of Christ you will find inexhaustible motivation in Him. He then can create in you the best “you,” you have the capacity of becoming. Contained in that “best you” is the most happiness and contentment for which you have the capacity.
Will trusting Jesus as Savior make you a Gold Medalist? Likely not, but there are other benefits. There is an old TV ad that will illustrate this.
A famous athlete is depicted as using a certain deodorant. An aspiring younger athlete holds up a container of the deodorant and asks, “If I use ‘Ban’ deodorant will it make doors open for me?”
A voice comes from nowhere saying, “No, but if you don’t it will make windows open.”
Turning to Christ in faith and trusting Him as Savior might not make you a Gold Medalist but it will make you the best “you,” you can be. Trust Him and see! He will motivate you to strive to be your best at everything you do. He did.
In general, Jesus’s leadership is characterized by his ability to inspire change, develop followers into leaders, and consistently demonstrate compassion and empathy.
Scripture says “…the one who says he abides in Him ought himself to walk in the same manner as He walked” (1 John 2:6).
You will never personally replicate Jesus, but you can characterize many of His traits. Efforts to follow Him brings out the best in us, hence is fulfilling.
Jesus said, “For I have given you an example, that you should do as I have done to you” (John 13: 15).
The Faith Factor in Life – Part Four
Read John 14: 1 – 7
Jesus said He was preparing a place that where He is there we may be.
We act like we are in the land of the living on our way to the land of the dying.
Actually, we are in the land of the dying on our way to the land of the living.
Now, how are we going to live in this time of transition?
Some people live dying. Others die living. Which are you?
You determine your destination by whether or not you do as Jesus said of Himself and “”believe also in Me,” that is, in Him.
Jesus, in the upper room, made a categorical statement which raised a question with Thomas. Having been told by Jesus that He was going away Thomas said, “We don’t know where you are going and how can we know the way?” Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.”
The way is not a process but a person. Once we have chosen Him as our way to life we must make Him our way of life and not turn back.
The Mexican General Santa Anna forced Sam Houston and his rag tag army into an area of near impossibility. Defeat seemed imminent to many. To Houston’s back was the river. To his fore the army of Santa Anna. He called his aid, Deaf Smith, and ordered him to burn the bridge across the river. Deaf protested that it was the only way out for them. Houston replied, “We ain’t going out that way, burn the bridge.” With that resolution he was committed to one way and offered no alternative. Do you have some bridges you need to burn to evidence your total dependence on Jesus?
Jesus is “the truth” embodied.
The Psalmist prayed, “Teach me your way, I will walk in truths” (Psalm 86: 11).
Jesus is “the life.” How can you know you are doing the right thing?
Proverbs 10: 17 answers, “He is in the way of life that keeps instruction.”
That brings us back to where we began. Faith is obedience. You are in the way if you obey His instructions.
Older theologians described saving faith in three words:
Notitia, that is, knowledge.
Assensus, that is, intellectual assent.
Fiducia, that is, a trust of personal commitment.
If you have knowledge regarding how to be saved, and intellectually understand it, make sure you have personally committed your all to Him for salvation and how to live life.
The Faith Factor in Life – Part Three
Read John 14: 1 – 7
Doubtless few challenges confront us that are as great as the death of a loved one. When grief comes as a result of the death of a loved one we can entrust them into the care of the Lord also.
It is like standing on a pier next to a vast sailing ship. Its great mast supports the unfolding massive white sails. The breeze catches the sails and the vessel moves out. We watch it intently as it slowly moves out to sea. Each moment it moves further away and gradually its size diminishes in our gaze. It appears smaller and smaller. Finally, it reaches the horizon and as it sails beyond, out of sight, we say, “It is gone!”
Gone? Gone, where? Gone from our sight, that’s all. The ship is just as large in mast and hull as ever. The diminished size of the vessel in our sight lies not in you or it. At the very moment someone at your side says, “She is gone!” There are others in the port to which she sails just over the horizon who are saying, “Look, she is coming home!”
Jesus has gone before us to prepare a place and He awaits us.
Faith is even more rewarding by the fact Jesus said, “I will come again.”
Present tense – – – to take them to myself, in time and for eternity. The resurrection of Jesus gives us such hope and inspires our faith. It did it for the first century believers and it will do it for us.
Often we think we have it difficult standing for Jesus, and it often is. Many of those first century Christians were thrown to the lions or forced to face gladiators. Nero once watched with wicked fascination as Christians knelt and prayed in the arena. He was astonished as they looked heavenward and their faces seemed to glow with a heavenly radiance. He asked one of his aids, “What are they looking at? What do they see?” His advisor was secretly sympathetic to these faithful beliefs and replied almost reverently, “The resurrected Jesus!”
They had confident faith in Him. They heard Him when He said, “Blessed are you when they revile and persecute you, and say all kinds of evil against you falsely for My sake. Rejoice and be exceedingly glad, for great is your reward in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you” (Matthew 5:11, 12). Will you be as faithful in your arena of trial as they and even rejoice?
Martin Niemoller, a Jewish Christian, was one of the few to survive Hitler’s Dachau Prison in World War II. To his last day he was tormented by the sight of men and women trudging to their deaths and the smell of burning flesh. Years later in a radio interview in Chicago he was asked how he kept his sanity during that time. He said, “You are much stronger than you think you are if God is dwelling in your life.”
You can stand far more than you think if you know Jesus is with you and you look at your circumstances through the eyes of faith.
The Faith Factor in Life – Part Two
Read John 14: 1 – 7
In Numbers 13 there is a classic example of the faith/action factor. Two groups came back from spying out the land of promise. One group brought the majority report, “there are giants in the land that make us look like grasshoppers.”
Joshua and Caleb had been with these men and had seen the same things they had. They didn’t mention the giants, they simply said “it is a good and prosperous land — let’s possess it.”
Were they blind? No! They had twenty-twenty vision just like the others. The only difference was they were looking through the lens of faith.
Are you looking at the giants or the marvelous opportunity of possessing the potential property you are confronting for the Lord?
Another example of looking at things through the eye of faith is the experience of Elisha at Dothan. Some months ago I stood on that same hillside and reflected on His frightful moment. The Syrian army had surrounded the city. Elisha’s servant saw the Syrians and panicked. Elisha encouraged him and assured him victory was theirs. Oh, come on Elisha, be real! You are outnumbered, cut-off, and surrounded. Why was he so calm and confident? Had he not read the “Dothan Daily News” and comprehended his helpless plight? Yes, he knew all of that. He had probably seen it on the six o’clock news. However, he viewed the situation through the eyes of faith and saw what the Lord had in store.
Faith is confidence in God.
Is there any area of your life in which Jesus is not trusted with absolute control?
It is possible, though always improper, for Him to be present in your life without being President of your life.
He is not to be dormant in your life, but dominant. Repeat, dominant, not dormant.
Do you want Him merely as your savior Lord or as your sovereign Lord?
“This is the victory that overcomes the world, even your faith.” Be mindful
Jesus said, “I go (before) to prepare a place for you.”
“Go” translates to “prodromos” meaning, forerunner.
When an ocean vessel comes into port a pilot ship goes out to meet it and guide it safely in.The pilot of the pilot ship knows the harbor and how to guide the vessel to safe harbor. Hebrews 6:20 describes Jesus as our prodromos.
Having provided the ultimate, heaven, He will provide all else that is needed. Heaven is described as a prepared place. He never takes us to an unprepared place. We can entrust ourselves into His care in time and for eternity.
The Faith Factor in Life – Part One
Read John 14: 1 – 7
Jesus gathered with the disciples in the upper room the night before His execution. The world of the disciples is about to go into eclipse at midday. Their world is about to fall apart. They were understandably distressed.
Jesus has always told His followers of the glory and the pain involved in following Him. Every believer must realize you can’t expect to eat the honey unless you are willing to take the stings.
In comforting His disciples that night He shared principles that can give us stability in our crisis.
Jesus’ time of sharing in the upper room on His last night had been repetitiously interrupted by Peter. Peter blurted out a question all of us who follow Christ want to ask at times: “Lord, where are you going?” (John 13: 36). In His answer Christ revealed the supernatural antihistamine for the sting of life. It is distress that can be doverted if we realize He is reliable. At our best we often aren’t. At His worst He always is.
Jesus said, “”…you believe in God, believe also in Me.” Jesus’ statement is actually a double-plus imperative: “Have faith in God, and in Me have faith.”
That is the point at which sin entered the world. Adam and Eve didn’t have enough faith to believe God’s Word. They wanted to do things their way.
Faith is merely confidence in God’s character.
Hear this: “Faith is the submission of our reasoning and worry to all that is revealed (in God’s Word).”
Faith does not ignore facts, it introduces facts, the facts of revelation.
Faith is not irrational; it is supernatural.
The Greek word for faith, “pistis,” comes from the word, “pisteuo,” meaning to obey. When you say you have faith in God you are saying I am willing to obey God.
The old western movie star, Dale Evans, observed: “I sought the pot of gold at the foot of the rainbow. It eluded me. By simple faith, I found it at the foot of the cross.”
Perhaps you have been looking for your “pot of gold” without success. All that the heart longs for can be found in Jesus.
When we look at things through our natural eyes they may well appear to be foreboding and frightening. When we look at them through the eyes of faith they are seen differently. Check your optics. What lens are you using?