JeffBerg.us

Blessed are the uncool, part 1

Blessed are the Uncool
Part 1: Living Authentically in a world of show
August 29, 2007

Being cool is about being a nonconformist.  Being right with God is about being obedient.

To be obedient we need to have…

1. Right Attitudes

• 12 Since God chose you to be the holy people he loves, you must clothe yourselves with tenderhearted mercy, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience.  (Col 3, NLT)
• To be cool requires one to think they are better then everyone else.  God calls us to think of others more than ourself.

2. Right Motivations

• 5 “When you pray, don’t be like the hypocrites who love to pray publicly on street corners and in the synagogues where everyone can see them. I tell you the truth, that is all the reward they will ever get. 6 But when you pray, go away by yourself, shut the door behind you, and pray to your Father in private. Then your Father, who sees everything, will reward you.  (Matt 6, NLT)
• Our goal need to be to please God, not look important in the eyes of others.  We can not do both.

3. Right Perspectives

• 17 And this world is fading away, along with everything that people crave. But anyone who does what pleases God will live forever.  (1 John 2, NLT)
• When I think of how goofy I was in the 80's, I am glad those things faded away.  Much of what we consider cool today will be gone tomorrow.  We need to remember what will last.

The Habits of highly effective Christians, 5 of 7

The 5^th Habit is Making Wise Choices

I get a real kick out of those criminals who are really dumb. (If you ever need 10 minutes of diversion Google "Dumb Criminals" and see what you come up with.)

All of these dumb criminals have in common one thing…at least two really bad choices. The choice to commit the crime and the choice to be stupid when committing it.

I imagine everyone who reads this will be a person who, at least as it relates to crime and punishment, will do the right thing. (None of you will speed, get a parking ticket, right?) But I also imagine that we are aware of a number of people who make dumb decisions in life.

We all want to make good choices in the big things in life because we recognize that making a poor choice can have a serious consequence.

I love the clip from Indiana Jones and the last Crusade when Harrison Ford has just entered the chamber where the Holy Grail is kept. In that scene the villain comes in and drinks from the wrong cup, causing him to die instantly. The elderly man charged with keeping the grail tells him, you have chosen poorly.

Proverbs 14:12 in the NLT reads, "There is a path before each person that seems right,
but it ends in death." Often well intentioned people end up making poor choices. People who desire on some level to honor God with their lives end up living with the consequences of a poor decision. Why is that?

I want to suggest that it is because we asking poor questions. The question we ask is….what can I do? The question we need to ask is, what is God’s best for me?

When we ask that second question, we are going to find ourselves in circumstances that make it much easier to make choices that bring life rather than choices that lead to death.

The book highlights a student who, in spite of his good intentions, always ended up drinking beer on a Friday night. What was happening was that after the football game he would end up at a pizza parlor with his friends. At the next booth over would be the older brother of a friend, who would offer beer to the minors. When it was suggested to him that he should probably stop going out for pizza what did he say? "There is nothing wrong with going out for pizza."

What question was he asking?  What can I do rather then what is God’s best for me. What is the way of wisdom? Yes, there is nothing wrong with going out for pizza, but when we ask that second question we realize that God’s best would keep us away from a tempting situation. When we ask this better question we find wisdom.

You see, wisdom is like compounding interest. Good decisions, made time and time again, well grow into a nest egg of wisdom.

We have all seen the movie Titanic and seen the large iceberg that supposedly ripped the great ship apart. But researches now believe it was not large damage that did it in, but cheap rivets that gave way when small damage came its way. It was a couple of poor decisions, compounded, that made for a disaster.

You see, just as small choices can have horrible consequences, good small choices lead to wisdom, and look at the results of wisdom from the book of Proverbs:

Common sense and success belong to me.
Insight and strength are mine (8:14, NLT)

Wisdom will multiply your days
and add years to your life. (9:11, NLT)

The seeds of good deeds become a tree of life;
a wise person wins friends. (11:30, NLT)

Wealth is a crown for the wise;
the effort of fools yields only foolishness. (14:24, NLT)

The wise have wealth and luxury,
but fools spend whatever they get. (21:20, NLT)

Those who trust their own insight are foolish,
but anyone who walks in wisdom is safe. (28:26, NLT)

That is what we get when we walk in the way of the wise. Sounds like a pretty good deal, huh?

Let’s review the habits. (You memorize these you get cold, hard cash Fusion!)

One, have faith in what is true about God and not in circumstances.

Two, engage in spiritual disciplines.

Three, stay pure sexually to preserve intimacy.

Four, be smart about your friends.

And now five, pursue wisdom. Let’s talk again next week.

Habit 4 - Choose Good Friends

I wrote this talk wearing a plaid shirt.  Why do I wear plaid shirts?  I used to think it was because I like plaid, now I am not so sure.  You see my mentor, Randy, generally wore plaid to church.  So I, as I put together my pastoral wardrobe, buy a lot of plaid.  Why...because I was under his influence.  Don't get me wrong, his effect and influence on my go beyond clothing, but I can't help but think that he is one of the most significant reasons if you see me I will be wearing a plaid shirt is because of my relationship with him.

We are so highly moldable it is crazy.  My boys say the word "actually" all the time.  (It is pretty darn cute to hear a two and a half year old say act-twully) I could not figure out why they said it so much until my wife pointed out that I , actually, say "actually" all the time.

This fact, that you and I are moldable by the people around is can be a good thing, or it can be a highly destructive thing.

I remember once picking up a kid named Ben to take him to youth group.  On the way to church I asked him what his favorite radio station was.  He told me it was, STAR 101.5.  (Greatest hits of the 80's, 90's, and today!) That night we were doing an activity where kids were supposed to share their favorite radio station.  80% of the kids said it was 93.3, KUBE FM.  Well wouldn't you know it, when it got to Ben, he said it was 93.3 too.  This would not be the biggest deal in the world, after all, it is only a radio station, if that proclivity towards making decisions based on the opinions of others did not get him in a world of hurt later on.

Proverbs 13:20 in the New Living Translation reads...

20 Walk with the wise and become wise;
      associate with fools and get in trouble.

Later on, Ben walked with fools and got in trouble.

A Swedish Proverb says it a different way,

"If you sleep with dogs, you are going to get fleas." 

Or, as Zig Ziglar once said,

"If you want to soar like an eagle, you can't pluck around with turkeys."

I would like to think that as a pastor I have a profound influence on your life, but according to Gallup I come in 17th.  I might as well not even be in the picture.  Number one...your friends.

WE HAVE TO MAKE A CONSCIOUS DECISIONS TO CHANGE WHO WE ARE FRIENDS WITH!  WE NEED TO LOOK FOR FRIENDS RATHER THAN PEOPLE WHO WILL ACCEPT US.  If we crave being accepted, our souls are at risk.  If we crave forming Christ-honoring friendships our souls will be built up.

So how do we make good friends?  How do we make friends that lead us on the right path?

1.  Recognize the Danger

I was once talking to a kid, a really good kid, who was hanging out with a kid who was bad news.  He told me time and time again that he would not do the same things this other kid would do and I believed him...and he did not.  But he also got rounded up by the police when this troubled kids got in trouble with the law...it was guilt by association at work.

There are “friends” who destroy each other,but a real friend sticks closer than a brother.  (Prov 18:24, NLT)

2.  Formulate A Plan to make the right kinds of friends

I think the book I am basing this series on hits a home run on this point.  If we were to make a top five list of what we want in a friend and then compare that with the friends we have now we might find that the two lists do not exactly match up.  Why?  Because we tend to pick our friends based on acceptance rather than based on what we are looking for.

So many of our friends are counterfeit friends, they are not the real thing.  And if we had a boat load of counterfeit money, and did not know it was fake, we would spent right and left.  Has a friend ever pushed you to be better?  Do you friend build you up?  Would your friends stick?

Fake friends bail at the fist sign of trouble.  See ya, wouldn't want to be ya, is the mantra.  Have you ever seen a friend bail on another so called friend?  If so, now they will bail on you too.

3.  Be the kind of friend you want

It seems to me that, in large part, we get a reflection of what we put out.  We need to make a decision to be more assertive and less passive when it comes to being the kind of person we want around us.

In the church we need to be the kind of people who do this best.

4.  Make some new friends.

This is really the missing link to spiritual growth.  I am yet to see a person make a long term change without changing who they let closest to them.

As iron sharpens iron,so a friend sharpens a friend.  (Proverbs 27:17, NLT)

Let's have friends that make us sharp rather then dull.

5.  Take some control.

You see, we are all at various times in our loves thermometers or thermostats.  We, as thermostats effect the temperature and we are from time to time, effected by the thermometer.  The job for us is to make a conscious and specific decisions about who we will be a thermostat to and who we will let me a thermostat to use. 

Make a decision to be in change of what you do, what you watch, who you sit with, etc.  People are starving for leaders...be a leader, not a follower!

This is not arrogance, but care and diligence. 

Ephesians 5:15 says,

"Be very careful, then, how you live—not as unwise but as wise," (NIV)  We need to live wise and wise living comes by making wise choices about who will be our friends.

That is the 4th habit my friends.  Can you remember all four?

1.  Have faith in what is true about God and not in circumstances.

2.  Engage in spiritual disciplines.

3.  Make good moral decisions...especially as it relates to relationships.

and now,

4.  Make good choices about our friends.

The Third Habit of Highly Effective Christians

The third habit is setting moral boundaries, which sets the stage for intimacy.

C.S. Lewis once said this…

"Now suppose you come to a country where you could fill a theater by simply bringing a covered plate on to the stage and then slowly lifting the cover so as to let every one see, just before the lights went out, that it contained a mutton chop or a bit of bacon, would you not think that in that country something had gone wrong with the appetite for food? And would not anyone who had grown up in a different world think there was something equally queer about the state of the sex instinct among us?

How true, huh? We do live in a country that gets sex wrong. We have lie after lie told us about sex - TV is full of ideas that are just plain outrageous, and the church has not done much to help. The church’s message has been something like this…

"We grew up with two things pounded into our brains from the day we were born, one is, God loves ya and he's gonna send ya to hell. The other is that sex is dirty and evil and nasty and filthy and sinful and bad and awful and you should save it for the one you love. So it's no wonder we were all schizoid maniacs." (I found this quote in the book, Tortured Wonder, found at the bottom of this page)

But that is simply not true…the Bible proclaims something different, it proclaims that sex, and more specifically sex as God created it to be experienced is good.

But for Adam no suitable helper was found. 21 So the LORD God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man's ribs and closed up the place with flesh. 22 Then the LORD God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man.

23 The man said,
"This is now bone of my bones
and flesh of my flesh;
she shall be called 'woman, ^[j] '
for she was taken out of man."

24 For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh. (Gen 2, NIV)

And from Genesis 1 we learn that God made both men and women, the body parts that fit together in a way unique way, and that it is good.

26 Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, ^[b] and over all the creatures that move along the ground."

27 So God created man in his own image,
in the image of God he created him;
male and female he created them.

28 God blessed them and said to them, "Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground."

29 Then God said, "I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. 30 And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds of the air and all the creatures that move on the ground—everything that has the breath of life in it—I give every green plant for food." And it was so.

31 God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. (NIV)

So why do we get it wrong? Why do we take something that God has made good and corrupt it so much? I think there are several reasons but they all center around lies out culture tells us.

Lie Number 1 – Sex is Physical

Wrong. Sex is, in a sense, spiritual. Look at what we are doing when we have sex. We are uniting with another in a way that effects us like no other act.

16-20There's more to sex than mere skin on skin. Sex is as much spiritual mystery as physical fact. As written in Scripture, "The two become one." Since we want to become spiritually one with the Master, we must not pursue the kind of sex that avoids commitment and intimacy, leaving us more lonely than ever—the kind of sex that can never "become one." There is a sense in which sexual sins are different from all others. In sexual sin we violate the sacredness of our own bodies, these bodies that were made for God-given and God-modeled love, for "becoming one" with another. Or didn't you realize that your body is a sacred place, the place of the Holy Spirit? Don't you see that you can't live however you please, squandering what God paid such a high price for? The physical part of you is not some piece of property belonging to the spiritual part of you. God owns the whole works. So let people see God in and through your body.  (From 1 Corinthians, THE MESSAGE)

Adam and Eve did not "just have sex"…that is impossible! They became one flesh. Two people can not "just hook up," something more profound is going on.

Human are the only species to have sex facing each other because it is an act of union and, in God’s design, a spiritual one. "Just" having sex is impossible!

Lie Number 2 – The Goal of Sex is pleasure

Wrong again…the goal of sex is oneness…connection with our spouse. The goal is to sustain and strengthen the relationship within this bond of trust.

(To explore this idea further I recommend the book, Sacred Sex.)

When you have taken sex outside the covenant of marriage you have communicated to your spouse that you think sex outside of marriage is okay. You have planted a seed…however small…that you could do that again to him or her. That seed corrupts oneness.

Lie Number 3 – You should have sex with multiple people so when you do become married you will know what to do.

Great sex comes only by knowing your partner and being known by them. Sex and oneness is so much greater than the physical act.

We can say another thing about this…trust me, people figure it out. Two naked people...hearts start racing….you don’t exactly need an instruction manual to tell you what to do.

Lie Number 4 – Everyone is doing it.

No, everyone on TV is talking about it, but not everyone is doing it. As a matter of fact, a number of the people who talk about it really don’t know what they are talking about.

I remember a guy in high school talking about his sexual exploits. At the time I was curious and jealous…but now…being a married man I know he was lying. There is no way a guy could do the things he claimed.

A number of people, a good number of people, don’t have sex before marriage and some never do. And here is something that would blow MTV away…they are healthy and happy!

Lie Number 5 – Sex before marriage will bring you closer.

This would be funny if it were not tragic. M. Scott Peck said that the foundational requirement needed to love another is the ability to delay gratification. Do you really want a spouse who lacks the requirement that everything else is built on?

Let me get personal here…I could not imagine having sex with my wife and then getting up and going home. That would drive us apart, not bring us together.

Sex within the covenant or marriage brings people closer. Sex outside complicates.

Lie Number 6 – It is not a big deal.

I beg to disagree for we live in an age where sex can kill. We talk a great deal about AIDS but if you are mathematically inclined to know that the possibilities are quite remote. But you know what is not so far fetched? Cervical cancer. Women who have a high number of sexual partners are considerably more likely to end up with cervical cancer. Ask some if they feel good about inflicting that risk on themselves or another person.

But the risks and harm that come from this is much more then physical…it is more mental and emotional than anything else. Here is a really simple one…if I knew my wife had sex with another man, I would always be wondering if she enjoyed it with him more. I would also be reserved and never be able to give myself fully to her.

It is a huge deal!

Lie Number 7 – Telling people to wait until marriage is just a bunch of adults trying to preserve something for themselves.

Let me put it this way…in my 15 years of ministry I have yet to talk to one person who was glad they had multiple sexual partners before they were married…but I have talked to many who live with the pain of regret.

So where to we draw the line?

There is this great continuum…from hi my name is ______ to sex…where on the line to we stop? Let me offer a few suggestions, as the Bible does not address this issue explicitly.

Remember that we were designed to go all the way. The closer move towards sex the harder it is going to be to stop. Decide a head of time where your line is.

Think of this as a large rock rolling down the hill. The faster it gets going and the further along it gets the harder it will be to stop.

Speaking of stopping, have you ever been given a dessert that you know you just should not eat? But you decide, to be polite, to eat half of it. What usually happens…we eat the whole thing!

It makes a whole lot of sense to me to stop early in the process instead of kicking the sex mechanisms into motion.

If you need a black and white line…let me suggest the fruit test.

Here is what I mean…I would suggest stopping at peaches and not watermelon. Still don’t get it? (If you are reading this in a public place you may want to use your imagination!) Move your lips and pretend you are kissing as you say these words. Now you got it. Speaking from experience, when my wife and I "peach" we feel loved….when we start "watermelon" we want to lock the kids downstairs!

Let me close with this. I love watching and playing football. Imagine going to a game to watch where there were no rules. It would stink. It would be chaos. Someone would get hurt. Rules provide the framework for an excellent game to excel. It is much the same with sexuality. When we live by God’s rules, we have the framework for the best possible experience.

The Seven Habits of Highly Effective Christians, habit number two

There once was a man who decided to go on a cruise. He had dreamed all his life to have the ability to sail the open seas and dip his toes in warm, crystal blue waters. He was a man of modest means so he had to save money for a great deal of time. After years and years of saving money he finally had the ability to take a cruise. The day came and he boarded the ship for his adventure at sea.

Again, he was a man of modest means and he decided that one of the ways he would skimp on his expenses was to bring his own food on board. He made a trip to Costco and stocked up on granola bars…he was more eager to see the Caribbean than he was to eat fine food. So every night at dinner time he would make the way back to his cabin, walking past the dining hall, and eat his Quaker Chewies.

On the last night of the cruise his curiosity got the best of him. On his way back to the cabin he stopped by the dining hall and asked the host, "How much extra would eating dinner in here have cost me?" Socked and taken aback, the host answered, "Well, nothing…it was included in the price of your cruise."

I think that is a good illustration for the life of faith for many. The price of admission has been paid…by the blood of Jesus…but we miss out on so much more.

Jeremiah 29:11 reads…. For I know the plans I have for you," says the LORD. "They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope. (NLT)

There is so much that God wants for us that we miss. And we miss it because we do not know his heart. We miss out on the abundance, the adventure, the mission, the purpose, and the companionship that Jesus offers us. And we miss out on this because we do not know the heart and mind of God. And the only way to get to know that heart and mind of God is to engage in spiritual disciplines.

Engaging in Spiritual disciplines is the second check point.

And not only does his prevent us from missing out on what God wants for us, but it puts us in a situation where we are more likely to vomit…not just miss out on the best but upchuck the best that God wants for us. We make a mess of things!

Mark 7 in The Message reads…

Jesus called the crowd together again and said, "Listen now, all of you— take this to heart. It's not what you swallow that pollutes your life; it's what you vomit—that's the real pollution."

When he was back home after being with the crowd, his disciples said, "We don't get it. Put it in plain language."

Jesus said, "Are you being willfully stupid? Don't you see that what you swallow can't contaminate you? It doesn't enter your heart but your stomach, works its way through the intestines, and is finally flushed." (That took care of dietary quibbling; Jesus was saying that all foods are fit to eat.)

He went on: "It's what comes out of a person that pollutes: obscenities, lusts, thefts, murders, adulteries, greed, depravity, deceptive dealings, carousing, mean looks, slander, arrogance, foolishness—all these are vomit from the heart. There is the source of your pollution."

When our heart is wrong the result is pollution! We make a mess! Not only do we miss out, we mess things up.

The only solution to missing out and messing things up is to have our minds renewed.

Romans 12:2 reads this, "Don't copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will know what God wants you to do, and you will know how good and pleasing and perfect his will really is." (NLT)

We all know the spiritual disciplines, but how many of us are serious about doing them? Jesus was. Several times we get a picture of Jesus that leads me to believe that the spiritual disciplines were not a part of his life but the core of his life.

Look at Luke chapter six and Mark chapter one.

One day soon afterward Jesus went to a mountain to pray, and he prayed to God all night. At daybreak he called together all of his disciples and chose twelve of them to be apostles…. (Luke 6:12-13a, NLT)

The next morning Jesus awoke long before daybreak and went out alone into the wilderness to pray. (Mark 1:35, NLT)

This is a good model for us. We may not be morning people, but something has to be done first in our days…why not pray and read Scripture?

Jesus understood that we are like a cup that is filled to the brim. When we are bumped, and we are going to be bumped, what is going to come out? Will it be sweat and fragrant? Will it be hot and bitter? What we put in the cup determines what will come out. What we put in our minds will determine what comes out. Do we put in garbage or do we put in Solid Food? (See Hebrews 5)

There is a story that is told about a Native American and his friend that were walking in downtown New York City in the middle of the day. You can imagine the scene…honking horns…. yelling taxi cab drivers….people on cell phones….jack-hammers wailing away. Noise and lots of it.

At one point the Native American man stopped and asked his friend…"I think I hear a cricket. Did you hear that?" His friend informs him that he is crazy, that there is no way one can hear a cricket in the cacophony of sounds.

They start to walk away when the Native American says…"I hear it again." At this point he walks over to a planter off to the side and starts looking through the plant. Predictably, he in fact does find a cricket.

His friend was amazed. "You must have super-human hearing. I can’t believe you were able to pick up that sound!"

The Native American turned to his friend and said, "My ears are no different than yours. It all depends on what you are listening for. We listen to what is most important to us."

He then proceeded to illustrate this by dropping some change onto the city sidewalk and wouldn’t you know it….dozens and dozens of people stopped what they were doing when the sound of money rang in their ears.

God does speak. God has made himself known. We can pick up His voice and call on us more and more clearly when we train ourselves to hear for it. We train ourselves by reading the word, by worship, by prayer, by journaling…by spiritual disciplines.

In Colossians we read that Jesus is the glue that his holding the world together. In John chapter one we read that Jesus is the Logos…where we get the word logic from… To get the heart of God we need to know the mind of God. To know the mind of God we have to immerse ourselves in the spiritual disciplines.

Do you want to avoid messes and experience God’s plans for you? The fuel to make that happen is spiritual disciplines.

Do you think this is important for adults and students? Me to.

That my friends, is the Second Checkpoint. See you next week.

Fighting Worry: Strategy #3

Fighting Worry – Step 3: Live into God’s Agenda

If you cling to your life, you will lose it; but if you give it up for me, you will find it. Matthews 10:39, NLT

Our worries decrease not only when we...

A. Live in the current day which God has given us, and

B. Live in the future that God has given us, but also…

C. LIVE INTO THE AGENDA THAT GOD HAS GIVEN US

PART 1 OF THE AGENDA: A LIFE OF PRAYER

Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you. - 1 Peter 5:7, NIV

"Every evening I turn my worries over to God. He's going to be up all night anyway." - Mary C. Crowley

PART 2 OF THE AGENDA: A LIFE OF MINISTRY

For you have been called to live in freedom--not freedom to satisfy your sinful nature, but freedom to serve one another in love. Galatians 5:13, NLT

"Anyone who is truly religious does not develop a neurosis." Dr. A. A. Brill

PART 3 OF THE AGENDA: A LIFE IN THE KINGDOM

Carry each other's burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ. Galatians 6:2, NIV

The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full. John 10:10, NIV

Fighting Worry: Strategy #2

Fighting Worry – Step 2: Live in the Future.

For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.

Jeremiah 29:11, NIV

Our worries will decrease when we have proper understanding about God and his work in the world.

Understanding #1 – God is Good

"Why do you call me good?" Jesus answered. "No one is good—except God alone. – Mark 10:18

"Every evening I turn my worries over to God. He's going to be up all night anyway." - Mary C. Crowley

Understanding #2 – God will win

9Therefore God exalted him to the highest place
and gave him the name that is above every name,
10that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
11and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father. – Philippians 2:9-11, NIV

Worry gives a small thing a big shadow - Swedish Proverb

Understanding #3 – God will overwhelm

16Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. 17For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. 18So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal 2 Corinthians 4:16-18, NIV

Fighting Worry: Strategy #1

Fighting Worry

Strategy #1: Live One Day at a time

 

In this world you will have trouble. (John 16:33, NIV)

 

Worrying is like a rocking chair, it gives you something to do, but it gets you nowhere. ~Glenn Turner

 

Worry, doubt, fear and despair are the enemies which slowly bring us down to the ground and turn us to dust before we die. ~Attributed to Douglas MacArthur

 

25"So I tell you, don't worry about everyday life--whether you have enough food, drink, and clothes. Doesn't life consist of more than food and clothing? 26Look at the birds. They don't need to plant or harvest or put food in barns because your heavenly Father feeds them. And you are far more valuable to him than they are. 27Can all your worries add a single moment to your life? Of course not.

28"And why worry about your clothes? Look at the lilies and how they grow. They don't work or make their clothing, 29yet Solomon in all his glory was not dressed as beautifully as they are. 30And if God cares so wonderfully for flowers that are here today and gone tomorrow, won't he more surely care for you? You have so little faith! (Matthew 6, NLT)

 

We lessen worry and live one day at a time when we…

 

1. Focus on the GOOD of the day

 

17Whatever is good and perfect comes to us from God above, who created all heaven's lights. (James 1:17, NLT)

 

    2. Focus on the TASKS of the day

 

23Work hard and cheerfully at whatever you do, as though you were working for the Lord rather than for people. (Colossians 3, NLT)

You can't wring your hands and roll up your sleeves at the same time. ~Pat Schroeder

A day of worry is more exhausting than a day of work. ~John Lubbock

       3.  Focus on the CONCERNS of the day

11Give us today our daily bread. (Matthew 6, NIV)

 

I've developed a new philosophy... I only dread one day at a time. ~Charlie Brown (Charles Schulz)

 

Worry never robs tomorrow of its sorrow, it only saps today of its joy. ~Leo Buscaglia