your own work

Comparison is the thief of joy, I am sure almost everyone had heard that before, but what do we all do? Go right back to comparing ourselves. 

One of my favorite parts about growing up were the summers in-between each college basketball season. I looked forward to those like crazy because everyday was the same. I would get in the gym, work all day, hit the track, weight room, and the gym, go to bed at 8, and then do it all over again. I loved it. 

I've been very fortunate where I have always been disciplined enough to really push myself to my breaking point when I would workout alone. Most people aren't that way. Every night when I put my head on my pillow to go to sleep, I knew that I had given everything I had that day. I also knew that I had gotten better. 

About every other day though, something would throw me off a little bit and take away my joy, and that was comparison. Every once in awhile when I would get caught up doing something on my phone, I would come across a snap chat video, or an Instagram video of someone else who was working out. I would get so fixated on what they were doing, I would loose focus on what I was doing. What wrecked me was that I understood you don't get the full scope of everything on social media. So were these guys doing this everyday? Were they only in the gym once? How long were there workouts? Were they also hitting the track and weight room? What am I missing out on?

When I wasn't focused on my own work, I was less effective and not as joyful, because so much of my energy was going elsewhere. 

"Pay careful attention to your own work, for then you will get the satisfaction of a job well done, and you won't need to compare yourself to anyone else." (Galatians 6:4)

This verse applies to so many aspects of your life, especially your career. My one thing for you today, is to pay attention to your work. When you do that, you will get the satisfaction of a job well done. Don't waste your time comparing your hard work to someone else. We don't need to compare ourselves to anyone. 

get over yourself

Each and every person is important, special, valuable, loved, and created in the image of God. But you are not that important. I don't say that harshly, I say it out of truth. Sometimes you just have to be brutally honest. When it come to the gospel you can't just always talk about all the good things...the things that make people feel good about themselves. 

If you think you are too important to help someone, you are only fooling yourself. You are not that important. (Galatians 6:3)

We need to help, serve, and love others! We love ourselves so much that we forget to help others. The best example I can think of is last week when I was in the office. A brand new colleague just started and their office space is right next to mine. Now my new colleague had lots of questions, and was really eager to learn from me so I spent a couple minutes helping out, but quickly left because I wanted to workout before my afternoon meetings started.

I spent so little time actually helping that I didn't feel good about myself. If I would've sat down and spent 45 minutes to an hour helping, then I could've potentially had a huge impact on her jump starting her career and being able to provide for herself and her family. 

I valued my 25 minute HIT workout over serving and helping out a new colleague. I thought that I was way more important than what I was.

Let's get over ourselves and help others today. I will commit to it if you will. I can promise you this, it's not going to be easy because we are sinners. But the good news is that we are loved. 

how can you actually tell?

I've written a lot this week about our sinful desires vs. what the Spirit wants, but what is the difference? I know it's pretty easy to distinguish but for me, I always better understand things when I see them written out.

sinful desires: sexual immorality, impurity, lustful pleasures, idolatry, sorcery, hostility, quarreling, jealously, outburst of anger, self ambition, dissension, division, envy, drunkenness, and wild parties. 

Spirit desires: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

Take a second and really look at those lists. I know it's pretty clear and obvious which list we should want to live by, but it's hard. No matter how hard I try, there always seems to be sinful desires that try to interrupt my day. Unfortunately we were born sinners. 

So what should we do when we experience sinful desires? 

Those who belong to Christ Jesus have nailed the passions and desires of their sinful natures to his cross and crucified them there. Since we are living by the Spirit, let us follow the Spirit's leading in every part of our lives. Let us not become conceited, or provoke one another, or be jealous of one another. (Galatians 5:24)

I hope that after this morning, and reading into this you will more easily be able to identify when you are living in one these types of ways. When you realize you are indulging in your sinful desires, nail those things to the cross and repent. Let's continue to follow the Spirit's leading in every part of our lives. 

a constant battle

You're out to lunch with your coworker, it's Friday afternoon and everyone is excited and in a good mood because it's almost the weekend. You've all worked extra hard this week and it feels extra good. One of your coworkers, isn't like the rest. He or she decided not to go eat lunch and keep working. 

All is good at lunch, nobody really notices it until someone brings it up. As soon as the name is brought up it's like the flood gates open and everyone starts talking about the coworker who decided not to hang out. I mean everyone is chiming in, there are people saying bad things, and others bringing up some good things. You notice that when some of your coworkers start saying bad things or making fun of the person, it seems like everyone is laughing more than when the good things are said. 

You're sitting there and the only person left to chime in is you..What are you going to say? Are you going to make fun of the coworker just to fit in? Are you going to say nice things because you feel like that's the right thing to do? Or are you going to tell the group you shouldn't be talking about your coworker who isn't there?

Life is a battle!!

We constantly wrestle with these battles daily. 

"The sinful nature wants to do evil, which is just the opposite of what the Spirit wants, And the Spirit gives us desires that are the opposite of what the sinful nature desires. These two forces are constantly fighting each other, so you are not free to carry out your good intentions." (Galatians 5:17)

Every day we are faced with a battle between our sinful nature and what the Spirit wants. You faced it yesterday, you will face it today, and most likely tomorrow you will as well. It's never ending. It's a constant battle. Just like the moment where it's your turn to chip in at lunch with your coworkers.

What are you going to do? I believe the most important first step is your awareness. You might just be the life of the party and you can't flip a switch all of a sudden. Or it might just be your second nature to fit in and be a part of the group! When you're in those moments, where you can tell you're a couple words away from fitting in or you have a knot in your stomach telling you to keep your mouth shut, that's the first victory!

Recognize the constant battle we all face, and from there we conquer it. 

flying a kite in an ally

I am very exited. These next few days I will be writing about the Holy Spirit vs. sinful nature. I would love to combine it all in one post but I believe breaking them up will allow the Holy Spirit to work and hopefully have these posts be more impactful. 

"So I say, let the Holy Spirit guide your lives. Then you won't be doing what your sinful nature craves." (Galatians 5:16)

Living by our sinful nature is like trying to fly a kite in an ally.

Have you every flown a kite before? I don't think I have in years...like 10 years. I always loved it though! There was always something so much fun about finding a super cool kite, going outside on a windy day, and seeing how high you could get your kite to go. 

One of the difficult challenges was always figuring out which way the wind was blowing. I remember picking up grass, throwing it in the air numerous times because I wanted my kite to fly. Once I figured out which way the wind was blowing, I let the wind take its course.

Now imagine flying a kite in an ally. Where there is no wind, it's dark, cold, dirty and your kite barely gets off the ground. 

The Holy Spirit is always at work. Somewhere on the earth it's windy every day. Even if it's just a little gust. If we truly want to live by the Spirit we must be willing to let the Holy Spirit guide our lives. We have to have open ears, hearts, and minds. Just like the excitement we get when we are trying to figure out which way the wind is blowing.  

the ultra green light

We have been called to live in freedom. Have you ever realized that? The freedom that we have in Christ has no limits. 

The freedom that we have in Christ is a lot like the freedom a head coach will give the best player on the team. Let's use basketball for example, I was fortunate enough to play on really good winning teams my entire life. In high school...I say this humbly, I was the best player on the team. In college it was a completely different story. 

For example, the best player I played with while I played in college way Clay. Everything we did flowed through him. He was our best player and our best leader. The coaches gave him more freedom than the rest of the guys and we were all okay with that. Clay had the ultra green light. 

Steph Curry also has the ultra green light. More than any other basketball player to ever plan. 

Luckily for us, that worked to our advantage and that year we were conference champions in both the regular season and the tournament. 

We have the ultra green light as believers in Christ. 

"For you have been called to live in freedom, my brothers and sisters. But don't use your freedom to satisfy your sinful nature. Instead, use your freedom to serve one another in love. For the whole law can be summed up in this one command: "Love your neighbor as yourself." But if you are always biting and devouring one another, watch out! Be aware of destroying one another." (Galatians 5:13-15)

We are to use our freedom to serve one another in love. Serving others is everything. Something I have started doing when I walk into a room, or a I wake up in the morning is look at my hands and say the word: serve. That helps me get in the mindset that I am here to serve others while not expecting anything in return! That's the key when it comes to serving. We should always serve, serve, serve, and serve some more without expecting anything in return. 

Love your neighbor as yourself. We have the ultra green light to serve and love today. We have that freedom daily so let's do something about it. Only Christ can give us all the ultra green light when we believe in our hearts that he sent his Son to die on the cross for all of our sins. 

Serve and love today.

Monday morning thought:

We should always read scripture and apply it to our lives, not apply our lives to scripture. 

The Word of God is everything. Way too often there are Christians who look at their lives and what they are facing and then compare that to what the Word says about it. It should be flip flopped..We need to despot the scripture into our hearts, minds, and souls and with that we can apply the scripture to our lives and what we face. 

When you are encouraging someone today, make sure you point them to scripture above all else. That's where we will find the truth to set us free. 

I hope this short post got you thinking this morning as we attack a new day.