Tag Archives: faith

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How to Take a Digital Sabbath

Do You Control Technology or Does It Control You?

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How often do you check your email? Social media? The news feed on your smartphone? Can you even remember the last time you went one full day without your digital device?

Maybe you need to give it a rest. A sabbath rest.

God started the whole sabbath thing when he rested after creating everything.

Although he didn’t need a day off, he took one to convey the importance of rest in how His universe functions. Rest is part of the divine design. And yet we often ignore it in our” always on” digital culture.

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One Thing You Can Always Expect When Stepping Out

Why the "Open Door" Method of Determining God's Will Doesn't Work

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Stepping out before you know how it all turns out—that’s what faith is all about. But many Christians embrace the false notion that it should be easy, or at least simple. And if it’s not, God isn’t in it.

But when we look at Scripture, nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, there is one thing we know we will encounter every time we change direction in life—resistance.

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How to Kill the Green-Eyed Monster of Envy

5 Ways to Stop Envy Before It Starts

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It’s been called the green monster. Invidia in the Latin texts. A deadly sin. And a common one. Envy.

I confess to falling for it at times. Far too many times. No matter how much success I experience, it’s never enough.

The book launch could have been bigger—like hers. The traffic could be higher—like his. The number of speaking engagements could be more—and so it goes. More. Always more.

As we strolled through our neighborhood last night, my wife and I noted features we liked about other houses, and I felt envy creeping in again—even though we have a beautiful home with more room than we’ve ever had before.

Envy, you see, is not rational. It doesn’t make sense when we think about it. But then we usually don’t think about it. We just go with the feeling and end up in a bad place.

But usually by the end of each day we’ve encountered more than a few people who appear to be enjoying success. More than we’re having, at least.

And that’s all it takes. We see it and we want it for ourselves.

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3 Things to Do When You Feel Alone

Discover How Jesus Beat Loneliness—and You Can Too!

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Ever feel alone? Jesus did, too. That’s right. Messiah. Creator. Savior of the world. Even he dealt with loneliness. After all, one of the reasons he became one of us was to understand what we go through each day on this terrestrial ball. But unlike us, Jesus refused to give in to the temptation to fixate on that feeling.

How did he beat it? Jesus beat loneliness by speaking the truth to himself.

It matters greatly how we talk to ourselves. Let’s face it, we are the one person we can never get away form—no matter how hard we might try at times. So what we say to ourselves is critical when we are tempted to feel alone.

It happened at least once to Jesus, most noticeably as he gave his disciples a final briefing just prior to his crucifixion.

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How to Stop Being Afraid and Obey God

7 Biblical Steps for Overcoming Fear

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Smack dab in the middle between real life and real faith is—real fear.  Fear of failure. Fear that we’ll look foolish. Fear that everyone will laugh when we do fail. Fear that __________ —fill in the blank with your own fear. There’s no shortage of reasons to be afraid. But how can we stop being afraid?

I believe that for those who have trusted in Christ as their only hope, God has not left us to be paralyzed by the unknown.

Instead, His Word gives us 7 steps for overcoming fear and rising victoriously above the challenges that come our way.

That’s not to say it will be easy.

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How to Pursue Your Authentic Life Adventure

7 Steps to Take When Stepping Out in a New Life Direction

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So you want to step out in a new life direction. But you’re afraid. That’s normal. Fear often keeps us from moving forward. What if I showed you the steps needed to move forward with clarity, confidence, and abundant faith to live an authentic life adventure?

First let me acknowledge that I did not follow all of the steps I am about to share with you—not intentionally anyway. Some I had to learn the hard way.

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How to Find Your Authentic Life Direction

5 Suggestions For Clarity & Confidence in a New Life Direction

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Do you know where you are headed next in life? Do you know where you should be headed next? If you’re like a lot of us, you may have accidentally fallen into a life direction instead of intentionally choosing your best path.

But it doesn’t have to be that way. In fact, it shouldn’t be that way.

God created each one of us with unique strengths, passions, and skills sets. He gave us each unique relationship connections that open doors of opportunity unavailable to others.

And He expects us to use it all to more fully reveal His majesty on earth as it is in heaven.

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Where Is God When You Start Your Day?

Help for Intentional Growth from Psalm 16

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I encountered some verses in Psalm 16 this morning that got my attention for they seemed to ask me: “Do you always start the day with God before you?”

I have set the Lord always before me; Because He is at my right hand I shall not be moved. Therefore my heart is glad, and my glory rejoices; My flesh also will rest in hope…. You will show me the path of life; In Your presence is fullness of joy; At Your right hand are pleasures forevermore. (8,9,11)

When I asked myself that question, I confess that I didn’t like the awkward silence that followed. All too often I feel as if I am out in front, taking the lead and hoping that God can keep up. It’s silly, I know, but maybe you do the same thing from time to time?

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Why Knowing Your Strengths Isn’t Enough

Finding Life Direction Requires a Kingdom Awareness

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Finding your life direction requires figuring out your strengths. I shared about how I discovered my strengths in this post. But for the Christian seeking to live an authentic life, it will take more than an awareness of strengths to find God’s best for your life.

It will take a Kingdom awareness.

Our strengths reside where our passions and talents unite. So if we devote the bulk of our time to doing things where those two intersect, we will be more productive and more fulfilled.

Why? Because we are doing the kinds of things God wired us to do.

You do not need to be a Christ-follower for this to be true.

But the disciples of Jesus should desire more. Jesus calls us to follow him ahead of career ambitions, the love of money, or even family ties. Our life direction priorities must align with His Kingdom priorities.

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Episode 2: What Makes Your Story Worth Telling? [Podcast]

Finding the Focus of Your Faith and Why It Matters

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Where you focus your faith will determine the value of your life story. It’s that simple. And that complex.

Episode 2 continues to build the foundation for living a story worth telling with a special emphasis on how faith factors into this journey to live an authentic life with abundant faith as followers of Jesus Christ.

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Have you ever felt that you needed to apologize for being a “person of faith”? Today’s episode explains why living by faith is the normal way to live for everyone.

Don’t forget my definition of faith: Faith is doing what you believe to be true, often in spite of what you see, sense or feel.

What you do reveals what you believe to be true.

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I mention my book A Story Worth Telling: Your Field Guide to Living an Authentic Life if you want to dive deeper into what it means to truly live a life of abundant faith.

Three Steps to Get Clear on the Focus of Your Faith

The three steps I challenge you to take to figure out the faith connection:

  1. Be brave enough to ask the question why?
  2. Ask yourself this question: so what?
  3. Use the if… then paradigm.

Please leave a comment below with your thoughts and subscribe to the podcast via iTunes.

And never forget that you are not alone.