In the book of Zechariah, God is laying out a bunch of charges against the evil His children had been a part of. He was hitting them for idolatry, sexual perversions, violence, greed and whole a bunch of other sins. Things had not been well in Israel.

However, part way through chapter seven, He turns it around and starts talking about what He does want to see. And in 7:10, God gives a top-5 list of characteristics that should represent His children:

“This is what the Lord Almighty says: ‘Administer true justice; show mercy and compassion to one another. Do not oppress the widow or the fatherless, the alien or the poor. In your hearts do not think evil of each other.’”

It’s interesting that God didn’t say, “Obey the 10 commandments” although He certainly want His children to do that. Instead, He gave them 5 action steps that would bring His own heart joy; five actions God wants from His followers that He asks for in Scripture from Genesis to Revelation! Think about these five action steps:

1. Show true justice (don’t let your decisions be tainted by money, social status or personal gain)

2. Show mercy to people; remember the mercy God has given you and be willing to give the same to others

3. Be compassionate; God has compassion on you so that you will have compassion on others

4. Be kind to the hurting

5. Think the best of each other

How can you intentionally put one (or more!) of those five actions into practice today? Here are a few thoughts on how to do that:

Justice

Could you fight for justice for those who are powerless? Could you advocate for someone who cannot advocate for themselves? Maybe for the unborn? Maybe for the homeless? Maybe for the disabled?

Mercy

So many people in this world live hard lives because no one has ever shown them mercy. Mercy is withholding punishment to someone who deserves it. The prisoner who deserves to be alone; the child who deserves punishment; the boss who deserves snide comments. So, Could you visit someone in prison today? Could you deal with your children in mercy today? Could you support your boss or teacher even if they haven’t earned the right?

Compassion

2 Corinthians 1:3-4 reminds us that God gives us compassion and comfort so that we might offer the same to others. Could you have compassion on a homeless man or woman today? Could you show compassion for a hurting neighbor? Our city is under heavy floods today, and there are city-workers and volunteers who are showing awesome compassion by working tirelessly for others’ safety and protection — could you share in something like that? Could you sort clothes at a homeless shelter or visit with children? Could you support a child through Compassion International (or someone other child-supporting agency)?

Be kind to the hurting

How could you put love in action for someone in your life today? Could you visit with a widow or widower? Could you take someone out to lunch who normally wouldn’t/couldn’t go? Is there a way you could support a grieving friend, family or church member? Who in your life is walking through some tough times, could you call and just listen?

Think the best

1 Corinthians 13 tells us all about love, and one of the qualities of love is this: Love always thinks the best. In other words, love assumes the best in what others say and do, not the worst. How could you apply that today? Maybe your boss is being a jerk, but you could assume the best — you might find out she is going through an incredibly difficult time in her life. Maybe you think your friends’ snide facebook update was directed right at you? Possibly you heard two co-workers or friends or church-members talking and thought it was about you? Choose to think best of those people regardless of what circumstances reveal, choose to think the best in others.

Make an effort to please God today by putting just ONE of those 5 actions steps into practice in your life today!

5 Thoughts

1. God is love. Our love for God should seep our of our pores. We are designed to love Him. We are supposed to be known by our love. Love God. Love others. It’s simple, not easy.

1 John 4:8

⁸ Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.

What happened after Christmas? Mary and Joseph they have traveled so far, only to end up in a stable to have the King of the world. The Savior is born. Does the inn keeper have bad dreams? When the Shepherd’s go back to the fields, are they changed forever? Do Mary and Joseph see if there is a gift receipt to return any of the gifts? Does the star disappear or fade into the distance? We know very little of what happens next. But what we do know is this: this baby marked history forever. His birth would start the beginning of a new era. His birth is the beginning of the transformational process that takes place in our lives. His birth is the beginning of God putting on human flesh. It’s where frailty and unspeakably great power collide. It’s where humility and greatness join. This baby is the glue that holds everything together.

John 1:14

The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.

Colossians 1:17

He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.

If most of us were asked, “Do you love Jesus?” I’m confident we would probably all answer “Yes. Of course!” Seems like a simple question for most believers, right?

I help run a massive sports ministry in our church. We work hard with over 200 families in our community to provide an awesome sports experience while using this opportunity to present the Gospel to over 300 participants. It’s pretty amazing.

It’s also pretty maddening at times! Frustrated parents seem to always find time to vent, while those who are having a great experience rarely take a moment to send along a note of thanks. Even though I have an army of volunteers who are working countless hours to selflessly serve, it seems that few people ever notice.

Check out this command from Galatians:  

Let us not become conceited, provoking and envying each other — Galatians 5:26

You know what Paul is talking about because we’ve all been on the receiving end of that — we’ve all been around people who are irritating; people who provoke us; people who stir up all sorts of feelings of anger, jealousy or even contempt. Sometimes it’s people we know, love and like, but in the wrong setting or in the perfect storm something snaps and we can’t stand them.

Of course, none of us like to think that we might be that person to others sometimes.

God Loves You

It’s impossible to comprehend how much God loves us. The  bible attempts to describe His love like this:

Ephesians 3:18-19

may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, ¹⁹ and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.

Above all, love one another deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins — 1 Peter 4:8

When my wife and I were first married and living in the Seattle area, we joined a local health club that had gyms near our apartment and near our church. This pretty much took away all of our excuses for not be able to hit the gym…although we still tried.

After several weeks of working out, I finally decided it was time to meet with a personal trainer and up my game a bit. I made an appointment and sat down with a young man whose body looked like it had literally been cut from a rock. He didn’t have a six pack, he had a 12 pack with a couple of extra muscle groups floating around his abs. He was lean, ripped and probably had about .00023% body fat.

He answered: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind”, and, “love your neighbor as yourself” — Luke 10:27

Yesterday we focused on loving your neighbor, today we’ll focus on loving God.

Love your neighbor

He answered: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind”, and, “love your neighbor as yourself” — Luke 10:27

Yesterday we were reminded that this command to love God and to love others is so simple, and yet so difficult. In fact, even in Jesus’ day it was a hard command to follow through on.

How’s Your Love Life?

Mark 12:29-31

"The most important one," answered Jesus, "is this: ‘Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these."

Love is essential. This passage is central to our faith. It seems that we have missed the mark in many ways. Love is certainly one of those areas. I can think of nothing more important to do today than to live this passage out.

Matthew 5:44

But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you

Have you ever struggled to pray for some one who doesn’t have a major issue going on? When some one is in crisis, it’s relatively easy to pray for their busted up marriage, a wayward child or a sick family member. But how do you regularly pray for someone who’s doing fine?

Check out this prayer by the Apostle Paul for the believers in the book of Colossians. This will be a great model of prayer for you and I to follow in praying for one another.

I have been married to my wife 15 years in June. I love her today more than ever. However, (hopefully she is not reading this because a "however" right after I confess my love is never a good thing), I am surprised that are love has grown as deep as it has. We both come from divorced backgrounds and given current statistics our odds for making it this far weren’t good. Yet, against odds we continue to grow in our love for each other. 

Marriage is designed to be a picture of our relationship with God. How are you doing?

I love the Brandon Heath song, “Give me your Eyes” and Josh Wilson’s song, “I Refuse” that both speak of the need for Christians to see people the way God does, and then to do something about it! Too many believers live in the comfort of their homes and church walls missing the incredible opportunities God has given us every day at work, school, in our neighborhoods or on our clubs and sports teams.

Too often, we’re like this:

Got a minute?

The following is a list of 10 things that you can do in under a minute. Make a choice to do at least one of these today. You could do one 10 times. You could choose to do a few of them. You could go crazy and try to do all ten. The point is to do something. Here they are . . .

Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth — 1 John 3:18

Don’t worry, we haven’t gotten lazy and this isn’t a duplicate from yesterday. Read on!

Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth — 1 John 3:18

Let’s meditate on what it means to love each other. We’ll do this by focusing on each verse dealing with love from the book of First John.

“Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ” — Galatians 6:2

It’s amazing how little we know about Jesus’ earthly father. Somehow in the equation of Jesus’ life, Joseph didn’t factor in to the story much, yet he played a very significant role.

As we keep thinking about reigning in our 30-50,000 daily thoughts, Paul now tells us to apply our thinking to things that are lovely.

What does “lovely” mean?

Lovely is an interesting word and has been translated as…

Beautiful

Winsome

Pleasing

Evoking love

Endearing

and more

Remember, Paul didn’t use words here that were particularly religious, he used words that would connect with the culture of his day and “lovely” was no exception.

This word lovely carries with it the idea of something beautiful, something that evokes love and joy — something that is pleasing to think about and promotes love (not lust!).  It’s more than just checking out a good looking man or woman, it’s about thoughts, people and ideas that have God’s values at the core of who/what they are.  It’s a sunrise in the morning.  A long walk on a rainy day.  It’ a child sleeping in his mother’s arms.  It’s a daughter with ice cream all over her face while on a date with dad.  It’s art.  It’s a picture that’s your screen saver or desktop image.  “Lovely” is seeing 1 Corinthians 13:4-8 lived out:  

Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends — 1 Corinthians 13:4-8

 Love takes on so many forms…

Write a list of ten lovely things to think about today.  What kinds of thoughts evoke love in you?  What is pleasing and endearing to you?  What is beautiful to you?  Remember, lovely thoughts help us become who God wants us to be by thinking how God wants us to think.  Think lovely thoughts today!

A Thousand Words

What if God is trying to get your attention in a thousand different ways? What if He has put clues throughout the universe to tell you of His love? What if He has written you a love letter? As you watch this video imagine God leaving you clues throughout this world for you to discover. Will you discover His love for you today?

 Love

“And now these three remain:  faith, hope and love.  But the greatest of these is love” — 1 Corinthians 13:13

“We continually remember before our God and Father your work produced by faith, your labor prompted by love, and your endurance inspired by hope in our Lord Jesus Christ” — 1 Thessalonians 1:3

“We always thank God…when we pray for you, because we have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love you have for all the saints — the faith and love that spring from the hope that is stored up for you in heaven…” — Colossians 1:3-5

Rightly so, we often spend time as a Christian community talking about ways to reach out to those who don’t know Christ.  We talk about commands in Scripture to share our faith and we talk about strategies for witnessing and go to seminars to help us overcome our doubts and fears.  All of this can be good for doing God’s kingdom work.

Today, however, I want to focus on how NOT to reach the lost — how you and I can totally screw up an opportunity God gives us by the way we act or the things we say.

My dad has worked for the post office for many years. There are days that I am concerned that it could get to him. However, he has yet to go postal. It is difficult delivering the mail. It can get to a person over time. Seeing so much mail can bring you to the edge. It takes a person of steel to deliver the mail. It’s not the bills, the endless junk mail or even the packages that get to someone–it’s the thousands and thousands of pieces of love mail. To see this much love going out to people all over the world, yet the one you love never sends you mail sealed with a kiss, scented with irresistible perfume, and written with boundless love. This can rip out a young postal worker’s heart out, bringing him to the postal limits.

Sometimes when we think about the Apostle Paul, we think about the Type-A, driven preacher.  The church planter.  The at times controversial and pushy leader of the New Testament church.  We think of him being strong in his leadership, stern with his directions for the church and very clear about the ways he expected conflict to be handled.  He was an amazing leader and as such seemed to often be in the midst of conflict with the other Apostles (Peter), the other missionaries (John Mark) and people in the churches he worked with.  Clearly God blessed him as the founder of the church to the Gentiles — his leadership is unquestioned.

Yet in all of that, it’s not often we think of Paul as a people person — Someone who really connected with, and loved, people.

But he was.

I have been fascinated by John 15 for about 10 years. It was spoken by Jesus less than 24 hours before he would stretch out His arms on a cross. As you read this passage count how many times Jesus says "remain."

The Greek term menō (men’-o) is aprimary verb: to stay (in a given place, state, relation or expectancy): – abide, continue, dwell, endure, be present, remain, stand, tarry.

Jonah, 32 of 66

^{Jonah 1:3a}

¹ The word of the LORD came to Jonah son of Amittai: ² ”Go to the great city of Nineveh and preach against it, because its wickedness has come up before me.”

³ But Jonah ran away

I love that the bible is filled with real people. I can so relate to these verses. God says, “Go north” and I start running south. Do you ever do the exact opposite of what God wants you to do?

Amos, 30 of 66

I love how Amos gets the Israelites wrapped up in the story of the wickedness of all the people surrounding Israel. He tells of the people’s crimes to the east and the the west of Israel. They must have enjoyed the first couple chapters of Amos’ sermon. It must have stroked their ego and their pious hearts. But after addressing the sins of the surrounding regions Amos gets to the heart of the matter and says, 

 ¹ Hear this word the LORD has spoken against you, O people of Israel—against the whole family I brought up out of Egypt:

 Amos 3:2

² "You only have I chosen 
       of all the families of the earth; 
       therefore I will punish you 
       for all your sins."

Continued from yesterday CLICK HERE

FUEL for the RACE

God’s Word is a constant source of fuel everyday. Let me put it simply with a questions: Would you rather eat or read God’s Word?

Matthew 4:4

Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.’ “

Revelation 2:3-5 (New International Version)

³You have persevered and have endured hardships for my name, and have not grown weary. ⁴Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken your first love. ⁵Remember the height from which you have fallen! Repent and do the things you did at first. If you do not repent, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place.

I had the privilege of performing a wedding ceremony this weekend. The weekend of love. When you marry two people you have the best view in the entire place. Everyone else is seeing the backs of their heads. But I get to see every tear, every smile and hear every whisper. The joy, the excitement and the love is so tangible. The look in their eyes tells of their hopes and dreams. As I did the ceremony I shared an all too familiar voice found in 1 Corinthians 13. I hope as you watch this video that you allow these words to sink past your thoughts and into your heart. I pray that this passage will shape your life.

I got a GPS for Christmas. For those of you who did youth ministry with me you know I can’t find my way out of a paper bag. My first youth group trip I took four kids on a hike. We got lost in the forest. Now when I say we got lost we left around noon with no food, no water, and no clue of where we were going. After about a half hour my four junior highers wanted to go back–no problem. I am sure camp is ahh, mmm over there! To make a long story short, my kids got dehydrated, several hours later we had the search and rescue team looking for us and me their fearless leader trying endlessly to find my way back to camp. Eventually we found another camp and someone (praise God) new the way to our camp. So a GPS is much needed. 

I went into the woods because I wanted to live deliberately. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life…to put to rout all that was not life; and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.
~Henry David Thoreau

What are you known for?  Take a moment to read Colossians 1:3-4 and note what the people of Colosse where known for:

We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you, because we have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love you have for all the saints— Colossians 1:3-4

Sometimes the Bible is hard to understand.  Even the Apostle Peter made note that when Paul spoke Peter sometimes had a tough time trying to understand Paul’s message.  If you have ever come across passages like that and wrestled, you know what I’m talking about.

Other times however, God’s Word is pretty simple.  You read it, you get it, now you have the joy of living it out in your life.  John 14:15 is one of those passages.

One of our passions at Tenth Dot Ministries is to encourage you to spend time with God not just learn about God. This week we want to encourage you to read through the book of Philippians. It’s a short 4 chapter book. If you have questions, prayers or thoughts write them in the comment section. Wrestle with God. Ask questions about your life. Let His Word speak into your life.

One of my Bible professors once gave me a great definition of kindness:  “Kindness” he said, “is love in action.”  I’ve never forgotten that simple, yet accurate, definition of kindness and we’ll explore it further in today’s Tenth Dot.

*This is part 6 of a 10 part series on the Fruit of the Spirit that started on November 23, 2009.  You can access past material by using the calendar archive button on the right side of the screen.

What is Love?

*This is part 2 of a 10 part series on the Fruit of the Spirit that started on November 23, 2009.  You can access past material by using the calendar archive button on the right side of the screen.

The mind never thinks without a picture.

-Aristotle

We are an image driven culture. There are thousands upon thousands of images that we are drowning in everyday. I believe this is why God continues to reveal Himself in tangible and visual ways. 

This is one of my favorite passages.

Ephesians 3:14-21

¹⁴For this reason I kneel before the Father, ¹⁵from whom his whole family in heaven and on earth derives its name. ¹⁶I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being,¹⁷so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love,¹⁸may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ,¹⁹and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. ²⁰Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, ²¹to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.

Don’t just go to the next page. Make this into a prayer, your prayer. (i.e. "Heavenly Father, I pray that out of your incredible, vast riches that you might strengthen my family with your power. Jesus, teach me to embrace the depth of Your love . . .")