Life, in general, makes us whiny, our flesh is naturally selfish and fusses at inconveniences and trials, and the devil’s demons are working 24/7 on our minds planting thoughts of discontentment. So to be a person who always rejoices, grumbles about nothing, constantly takes negative thoughts captive, and sets their mind on positive things takes a great deal of determination and self-control.

The key for me is to acknowledge that it is God’s will, His command to rejoice always.

Psalms 7:17 I will give thanks to the Lord according to His righteousness and will sing praise to the name of the Lord Most High.

Psalms 86:12 I will give thanks to You, O Lord my God, with all my heart, and will glorify Your name forever.

Psalms 9:1-2 I will give thanks to the Lord with all my heart;
I will tell of all Your wonders.
I will be glad and exult in You;
I will sing praise to Your name, O Most High.

When we are positive instead of negative in our thinking and speaking we experience many blessings in life from God and others;

We have much better relationships with people, people enjoy being with us, we have more energy and strength, we have better health, we have a good marriage, we tend to raise much happier kids, God uses us more to do His work, people are attracted to our faith, we tend to make more money, and we catch more fish!

It is worth working on

The level of fire and passion in me at any given time is a key to my accomplishing a lot with my life and enjoying the activity that I am involved in. When I am hot, life is good, and things get crossed off of my “to-do” list fast. But the level of fire and passion in me at any given time is a massive variable in my life, and often is a mystery as to why some days are rocker launchers and other days are a ho-hum; I wonder what we are eating for dinner tonight day. One thing I do know with certainty is that when my fire is out I can’t simply “will it” back like turning up the thermostat on the wall. But I do know where the service station for passion and drive is located in my life.

Actually, there are a number of “fire starters” in my life including fishing, but one of the most effective is the encouragement I get from other people. That shouldn’t be a surprise to me because it is a major principle in the Bible repeated many times. It is God who gives the inner strength, will and motivation, but He always gives it to us through other people. God gives us what we need in order to run with endurance the race that He sets before us, but He requires humility on our part to seek it from others.

1 Thessalonians 5:11
Therefore encourage one another and build up one another, just as you also are doing.

Hebrews 3:13
But encourage one another day after day, as long as it is still called “Today,” so that none of you will be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.

Here are a few principles regarding the discipline of receiving God’s fire from others;

1. The more encouragement we choose to give to others the more we will receive, this is a fundamental law of God that applies to many different areas of our life, Luke 6:38 says, “Give, and it will be given to you. They will pour into your lap good measure—pressed down, shaken together, and running over. For by your standard of measure it will be measured to you in return.” Many don’t get much encouragement from others because they rarely choose to give it.

2. Certain people in my life are very effective at filling my gas tank full. I need to know who those people are and always be on the lookout for more like them.

3. Regular times of hanging out with these kleptomaniacs tends to keep my passion level at a constant level usually above 3/4’s full. That is so much more effective than waiting until I am in a major “blue funk” to seek it. Accountability groups, Bible studies, and prayer meetings of men with other men and ladies with other ladies is a great way to accomplish this fellowship time, but often purely social events work great for me.

4. The stronger the relationship that I have with others who light my fire the more effective the “giving encouragement” process is between us. But healthy relationships take time, work, and understanding in how to have a healthy relationship, which is the bottleneck in this whole process with most people, if we don’t value it we won’t work at it.

5. Most Christians don’t put a very high value on time spent with others for the purpose of encouragement so they don’t make it happen in their life. In their mind the effort and time required isn’t worth the payoff. They will struggle in their walk and relationship with Christ., bearing little fruit for God, and doing poorly at the “Judgment Seat of Christ.”

Revelation 2:4 But I have this against you, that you have left your first love.

Revelation 3:16 So because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of My mouth.

Hebrews 6:6 and then have fallen away, it is impossible to renew them again to repentance,

Hebrews 3:12 Take care, brethren, that there not be in any one of you an evil, unbelieving heart that falls away from the living God.

There are a lot of warnings in the Bible about falling away from God. I see it happen often, and it is one of the most discouraging things for me as a pastor to witness in people. I have seen people backslide, repent and grow, backside again, repent and grow, and backside again.

The foundational reason is the same as Adam and Eve’s fall in the very beginning, the devil and his demons are very real, very crafty, they hate us, they hate Jesus, and they work on us non-stop.

2 Corinthians 11:3 But I am afraid that, as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, your minds will be led astray from the simplicity and purity of devotion to Christ.

1 Peter 5:8 Be of sober spirit, be on the alert. Your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.

The second basic reason is the world, the money, and the stuff that is in the world that is all around us all of the time. We quickly become entangled in it, and we easily fall in love with it.

If we become haphazard in our spiritual disciplines like daily Bible reading, prayer, gathering with other believers and worshiping God we will fall away, guaranteed, and it is the business of life caused by all the stuff in the world that is the main competition to the spiritual disciplines.

1 John 2:15 Do not love the world nor the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.

Luke 16:13 No servant can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.

Loving the world and the money and stuff in it is very, very easy to do. We slide into it hardly even noticing, and when we are loving the world even just a little bit we have fallen from our first love.

We need to have a holy fear of drifting away from God recognizing that once the slide begins it is very difficult to stop.

Hebrews 4:1 Therefore, let us fear if, while a promise remains of entering His rest, any one of you may seem to have come short of it.

The most important safeguard against turning your back on God is a strong and healthy accountability relationship with others. But sad to say, most Christians don’t think they need it, and they are too busy in the world to make time for it.

One of my favorite things to do is to sit in my hot tub. The muscle stiffness and rigidity that comes from my Parkinson’s feels so much better after a hot soak in swirling water for fifteen minutes. It is a little hot tub with room for only one person at a time. I bought it off Craig’s list about ten years ago for $500 and it has been going good ever since. Sometimes when I run out of the powdered chemicals that I put in the water I will steal a bottle of chlorine out of Patty’s laundry room and use that. But this morning I must have grabbed a wrong bottle because it made a whole slew of suds.

When I first get into the hot tub I almost always go immediately asleep, which I did this morning. After I had been asleep for just a little bit I had this strange sensation that I was getting eaten so I opened my eyes and everything was white, I couldn’t see anything but white. I thought maybe I had died and I was in heaven, and I wondered when I would see Jesus, an angel or someone I knew. But then my eyes started burning and when I reached my hands up to rub them the real world broke into view, and I realized I was still here but in a mountain of suds, what a disappointment that was.

Psalms 73:28 But as for me, the nearness of God is my good;

James 4:8 Draw near to God and He will draw near to you.

Psalms 27:8 When You said, “Seek My face,” my heart said to You,
“Your face, O Lord, I shall seek.”

Deuteronomy 4:29 But from there you will seek the Lord your God, and you will find Him if you search for Him with all your heart and all your soul.

How close am I to God? How do I get closer? How do I draw near to God? How do I seek God? What does it feel like to be close to God rather than far away?

The closer we are to God the more joy we will feel. The closer to God we are the more boldness and courage we will have. The closer we are to God the stronger our self-worth will be.

Psalms 16:11 In Your presence is fullness of joy;

There are numerous ways we can draw near to God. The Bible gives answers and illustrations on hów to successfully be a friend of God and not simply an acquaintance.

One key way to seek God is by being a positive person, one who thanks the lord for everything. The more thankful we are the more God will reveal himself to us. God is just like I am in that He doesn’t enjoy spending time with a complainer, grumbler, or whiner.

I think that as God orchestrates our life as a Potter with clay that he designs the consequences of getting older to be added weight on the barbell of our life to make us stronger and more like Jesus in character. Things were so much easier when I was younger. Just getting my socks on in the morning now is a ten-minute ordeal. As of late I have found myself paralyzed, stuck in my recliner. I am not really paralyzed, it is just easier to stay there than get up and do what I am supposed to do, so I just sit there, seemingly unable to move. The self-control needed to get with it hasn’t caught up with the effort required to get up and do something.

The character growth takes place as I recognize what is going on in my life, and determine to conquer this and then to just do it. The fact that it takes more effort and time is just how it is, not just for me but for most people as they get older and, for many, much worse than what I am experiencing. I can still fish, work on my car, preach and teach for hours, work on my house, and ride my bicycle, it just takes more effort, determination and time than it used to.

The cool thing is that God wants me to grow in character, to run the race that He has set in front of me with endurance, and to be diligent, self-controlled, and joyful in the process. He gives me His strength to do just that, and I have the promise that He won’t put more weight on the bar at any one time than I can handle.

Another cool thing is that the recliner I have has an electric hoist, so I push a button, and it lifts me right up to my feet. Now if I could just get it to put my socks on I would be set.

Years ago I decided that when I say “I love you” to Patty it needed to be more than an expression of affection, it needed to be an expression of my commitments to her, so I wrote out a list of seven commitments and expanded the list to a dozen on our 50th wedding anniversary. Every time I say I love you I am remaking these commitments. A few of them are;

(1) I will not get angry at you, not even a little bit irritated, no matter what you do.

(2) I will talk to you any time you want, for as long as you like, and I will honor you by paying sincere attention to your words.

(3) I will pray with you at least three times each week.

(4) I will not be bossy or controlling of you.

(5) I will not be selfish or possessive of your time, and will give you all the freedom you desire to develop your spiritual gifts and ministry.

(6) I will regularly ask for your opinion and counsel on character weaknesses and blind spots that you see that I need to work on in order to enhance my walk with Christ, my role as a pastor, and as a husband to you.

Proverbs 27:17 states, “As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.” We must always stay sharp. For this to happen, strong and positive relationships are a necessity. It requires building a community of like-minded individuals who genuinely care about each other and want the best for each other. Way too many men are not in any kind of group that has as it’s purpose to “sharpen one another”. The reason is that they don’t think they need to be part of such a group. They might think that it would probably help them a little bit.but it isn’t worth the time it would take. God created us so that we won’t come close to being what we could be or accomplish what we could accomplish without help from others. He made us, wired us, saved us, and put the Holy Spirit in us, not so that we could declare independence from others, but so that we would have power to help others. We give and receive grace from each other but only in an environment of love, forgiveness, acceptance, and gentleness.

There are

about a dozen areas of life that need balance in order for us to be healthy, happy and successful. One of those areas is balance between having an intense desire to accomplish a goal and being relaxed about accomplishing that same goal.

Intense desire, passion, want, and focus is the difference between being a person who is a true champion continuously accomplishing significant goals or a person who is mediocre at best in his life and life accomplishments. Being a person who is driven to accomplish significant things saves you from being lazy and unmotivated.

But being an intense, focused, and driven person can be hard when a goal that we are pursuing isn’t accomplished, the disappointment from unrealized dreams can be very painful. The pain of the disappointment tends to make us difficult to live with. But a highly motivated, focused and passionate person tends to think that he will accomplish all of his goals, but there are to many things in life that we can’t control to make that even a remote possibility. So we alternate between the joy of winning and the disappointment of losing.

A totally relaxed person is ok with not accomplishing a goal, not getting everything on the “todo” list crossed off. He is much more into the process of accomplishing the goal, the journey of accomplishing something significant needs to have a significant amount of fun in it. A totally relaxed person will have a lot of friends but few significant accomplishments in his life.

Being a person who is walking on a 2 x 4 going between two buildings 100 feet off of the ground will require amazing balance to accomplish that short journey without dying.

Having a balance between being totally obsessed and being relaxed will result in us being faithful, diligent, and enjoyable to be around.