Various Articles
How you live your life and how faithfully you teach your children will have a major influence on them. Proverbs 22:6 says that we should “train up a child in the way he (she) should go”. Should is a word that contains judgment. You need to decide what is right and wrong in God’s word and you need to train your child to adopt those same values.
The older I get the more keenly aware I am of just how little any of us can do concerning our spiritual condition. Our best efforts to “improve” result in failure. Good intentions rarely translate into effective action. If all our righteousness is as filthy rags (Isaiah 64:6), then our best course of action is to follow the prompting of inner Holy Spirit. The way of true righteousness is submission and obedience. In essence, don’t try harder; yield more.
The word, sloth or slothful means lazy or indolent. The slothful person fails to engage life in a meaningful way. They are essentially withholding energy or effort to do the things that need to be done. Proverbs 19:15 points out this truth about the danger of sloth: “Slothfulness casts into a deep sleep, and an idle person will suffer hunger.”
Background. Several years ago I did my Master’s Degree capstone project on Gratitude. When I gave my presentation I used a painting that was very meaningful to me and said:” I wake up each day with a smile, I have so much to be thankful for.” For years that small painting was next to my bed and was the first thing I saw when I woke up each morning.
vents in this country and the world seem to be unfolding at a rapid rate. Wisdom and discernment are especially high priorities as we seek insight into the significance of current events (“you know the time, that the hour has come for you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we first believed. The night is far gone; the day is at hand” Romans 13:11-12).
The Jewish exiles, consigned to seventy years of captivity in a foreign land, might not know the way home when the time came. A highway familiar to their parents and ancestors would be unknown to some who would be born in the land of captivity. Markers placed by those going in to captivity would be invaluable to those returning seventy years later.
Sometimes, the best way to learn about what something is is to consider its opposite.
In 1 Corinthians verse 5 Paul gives three more examples of what love is NOT.:[Love] does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful;
For the past almost 40 years, I have lived with the most beautiful, amazing, wonderful woman. This woman has patiently served alongside me as a pastor’s wife in places far from her family and friends. She even let me drag her halfway across the world to England to start a church with a toddler in tow and she was “great with child” as in, about to pop. She has been a great wife to me and a mom to our 11 children.
I love her more than anything on the planet and her name is Karen. Sadly, the name Karen has, in recent years come to be associated with a certain kind of middle-aged woman who is, shall we say a bit entitled, difficult to please, and hard to get along with. The woman who “asks to speak to the manager” is referred to as a “Karen”. I like to tell people “My wife is named Karen but she is not a Karen.”
Why do “Karens” cause endless eye rolls? Because they are very insistent on getting their way, they tend to be easily irritated by normal human flaws and frustrating situations, and they carry resentment towards those who upset them, they are not quick to forgive and give people a second chance.
If the Apostle Paul was writing to today’s Christians he could simply say “Don’t be a Karen” and would easily get his point across. Instead, Paul might say be an Annabelle, which means “loving” or for a male be an Amadeus, which means “love of God.” (Although for many Annabelle was ruined by the horror movie franchise bearing that name. For older people like me the name Amadeus was ruined by the movie about Mozart- a talented musician and horrible person).
Instead of being a Karen who insists on having her way, be an Annabelle who, as Paul says in Philippians 2:3 learns to “value others above yourselves.” Instead of being a Karen who is irritable or easily angered be an Amadeus who is “slow to speak and slow to anger.” (James 1:19). Instead of being a Karen who is resentful, be a person who practices forgiving “70 times 7” as Jesus taught. (Matthew 18:22).
By now you might be wondering, does Paul want me to become like, a whole different person by doing all these practical, loving things? Paul wants us to allow the one perfectly loving person, Jesus, to radically take over our lives. To be so full of God’s spirit and love that “to live is Christ.”
©Jeff Fletcher
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Wise people who value relationships plan and schedule time and activities to enhance their relationships. Husbands and wives schedule date nights, and special vacations. Plans are made to devote time for conversation and connection with friends and family members we cherish. The same applies to our relationship with our Father: deliberate effort is essential for an enriching relationship.
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But God had a lot more to teach me. And Brother Paul put his finger on it. In 1 Corinthians 13:1-3 Paul is saying a lifetime of accomplishments, being a gifted speaker, full of knowledge, or being spiritually gifted with miraculous powers, in the absence of concrete acts of love, is just a bunch of noise.
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