650

We started 650 today. It is a guy things that is meeting every Friday at 6:50 at the PC offices. We get together to eat, talk, joke, and I am teaching through the Book of James. I really had fun with it today. I love it when a group of guys really begin to pursue Christ. There is just something powerful about that. I am not real sure why...maybe it is because so many do not. Whatever the reason it is just plain cool and I loved it.

See you next Friday guys. Join us if you would like (4619 Sheraton drive at the south end of the AT&T building).

The danger of Southern Christanity

We have a lot of great things in the South. Southern Fried Chicken, Southern Rock, and Southern Hospitality to name a few. But there is something that we have perfected in the South that I am so tired of...Southern Christianity.

It is a real good imitation of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. You see, in the South we think we are all Christians. Mainly because we all went to church at some point in our life...VBS, Sunday School, confirmation class. We were told about Jesus and we liked the story of God becoming man to die for us on the cross. We were told to pray a prayer, or go to a class and to believe. We choose to believe. So we decided to add Jesus to our life to make life better. That is Southern Christianity. It is about believing the story of Jesus and trying to live good. The tragedy is that you might have embraced Southern Christianity and missed the Gospel.

Southern Christianity is about adding Jesus to your life to make your life better, but the Gospel is about giving up your life to live for the pleasure and glory of Him. Southern Christianity is about looking like a Christian, and the Gospel is about living for Him with a fearlessness of what others think. Southern Christianity is about living the rest of your life with the right belief about Jesus, the Gospel is about a life long journey of being constantly changed. Southern Christianity is powerless, and the Gospel is transformational.

Southern Christianity just may be the best imitation of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Some may read this and think that I am a little fanatical, need to calm down, and don't be so extreme...maybe I am...but am I wrong?

21Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven -Matthew 7:21

brokeness

There is something so inviting and repelling about brokenness. On the one hand, we run from it. Maybe because we see brokenness as weakness and no one wants to be weak, or maybe because brokenness is acknowledging that we are out of answers. I don't know, but it is rarely people's favorite place to be.

However, there is also something inviting about brokenness. I think that there is something in us that knows that God is attracted to the brokenhearted. That he empowers those who he knows are powerless. The art of giving up can be the first step to being blown away by something awesome that God does. Brokenness is not a place of total defeat, but the first step to success.

I have been through a lot of things in my life...good and bad. The mix has been such that I live as a man broken before God. I struggle to believe that God can and will ever use me to impact others lives, I struggle accepting it when people indicate that God used something I said to impact them, I am blown away by what God has done at Piedmont, and I am convinced that my skills to screw things up is far greater than my skill to do it right.

I at times would like to shed this sense of brokenness, but at the same time I know that I am in the best place I can be. I think that greatness, real greatness, can not come without passing down the highway of brokenness.

Choose Life

Check out this verse;

"I place before you Life and Death, Blessing and Curse. Choose life so that you and your children will live. And love God, your God, listening obediently to him, firmly embracing him (Deu. 30:19b)."

When I read this verse an application shot to my mind. I sensed that in my life right now the most important arena that I could apply this to is my attitude. My attitude at any given moment is the result of my choice. I choose my attitude.
God challenges me to "Choose life." Several times today I will have the opportunity to choose life or death in my attitude.

When I arrive at work am I going to embrace a negative attitude, or tell myself that today is a day that God gave me and I will look for Him in it? When the gossip begins around me will I join in, or tell myself that that is not what I am to be about today?

Your attitude that you choose today will effect every word, decision, emotion, and behavior. When you choose life in your attitude, the rippling effect is amazing.

So, right now, choose life.

Setting the Mood

Think about this question. In the relationships and arenas of your life do you tend to be a thermometer or a thermostat? A thermometer just reflects the temperature of the room, while a thermostat determines the temperature of a room. That is a powerful illustration if you think about it.

It is soooo easy to be a thermometer in life. Allowing circumstances or someone else to determine our mood, attitude, and actions. Yet when you look in scripture, God challenges us to be thermostat by first asking in every situation what God and His Word has to say about the situation? What attitude, response, or actions should I project here that would bring on the applause of God? When we do this, we begin to be a influencer on the "temperature" in the relationship, the group, or the people under us, and can help move them/it in the direction that God desires.

Which will you be today?

Organic verses Programed

I on occasion will get someone encouraging me to get more programs started to get people studying about God. To set up class after class on knowing God. They tend to think that discipleship is programed. I don't agree. Well really I do and I don't.

I am writing this because I am about to institute some programs that will help people to learn to pursue Christ. So I am not an "anti-church program" guy. However, I do believe that spiritual maturity is far more organic than programed. I believe that most of the time it comes from our own pursuit of God, and not poured into us in a classroom. Now it is hard to grow without knowledge and classroom settings are a good place to get knowledge, but additional knowledge does not automatically produce growth. If fact going to bible study after bible study can actually hinder growth. It can leave you feeling mature, but you might just be informed about God and not mature in a relationship with God.

Growth is more organic. It comes as we invite into our lives those things needed to grow us (see previous blog entries on this). It comes as we look for God in every facet of our lives. Growth is ongoing and constant.

You can also be a catalyst for growth in others, It is simple, pursue Christ and look around for people along the way that you can invest in. You don't have to take a mentoring class or be sanctioned by the church, just invest in them. I am sure that as you do you will be long remember as the guy who made a difference.

Make a job change www.jerrydingmore.com

Let me breakdown Col 3:23-24 so that it can impact your today at work.

Colossians 3:23-24

23Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men, 24since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving.

Whatever you do - What is about to be written applies to your "right now," and not your future. It is not something you begin to do when you have the dream job, when you get a new boss, when you start your own business. It applies to your "right now."

work at it with all your heart - You are to put your heart in it. What is important to God in your work is not the task but the effort. He is not consumed with your title, but is aware of the effort that you are putting into whatever you are doing. You may have great Christian character, but that is not a substitute for poor workmanship. How you do whatever you do is a concern of God.

as working for the Lord, not for men - Stop working for the visible boss and begin to work for the invisible boss. If you work for man the pressure will be to try to look good and that means sacrificing a little integrity occasionally, only working hard when the boss is around, looking out for #1. When you work as if Christ is in the office with "Boss" on the door; you work with high integrity because you know He is watching and loves integrity, you give credit away sometimes because that impresses the one you are working for, you refuse to get in the office politics but instead you look for ways to serve your co-workers. Change boss today without changing your job.

since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving. - To God your job title and task is not all that significant, but your effort and behavior will be remembered.

If you hate your job ask God to change your heart or change your job to a new one, but until he does put Colossians 3:23-24 to work at your work.