WITH GOD DAILY - "Gifts vs. Giver"

Ask yourself, what is my ultimate concern today? What occupies my imagination? What do I daydream about, and what motivates my actions? The first commandment is a warning to not give this precious, life-defining position to anything or anyone unworthy of it. It belongs to your Creator alone.

That’s when we might discover it’s the churches we’ve dismissed as weak and insignificant—the small, decentralized, anti-fragile networks of disciples found throughout the rest of the world—that courageously step forward like David to face the challenges of our time.

The Church of Jesus is without question the most anti-fragile system in world history.

1. Pause and collect yourself.


2. Process by naming your emotion.


3. Plan by assessing your skills, capabilities, and resources.


4. Proceed , treating your next steps as experiments and adjusting as you go.

Economists say America transitioned from a manufacturing-based to a consumer-based economy in the 1950s. That means our society depends on discontentment; on people buying more and more of what they desire not merely what they need. During WWII the government severely restricted public consumption of certain goods needed for the war effort. Followi

“I shall not want,” he says. It is sometimes translated, “I lack nothing.” Dallas Willard, who used to raise sheep, noted that the verses that follow reinforce the message of contentment. Sheep typically do not lie down in green pastures, they eat green pastures. Likewise, sheep are expected to drink from quiet waters, not walk beside them. The ima

The theologian Paul Tillich declared that faith is “the state of being ultimately concerned.” He argued that because each person has something of ultimate concern that defines their life and identity, all people are religious—even the atheist. Every person has something in their life that functions as their god. For some, this god-function is occup

The question for those of us in the West, and particularly in America, is this—Why have we chosen to construct such fragile church systems? Why do we build ministries that rely upon a single fallible leader, one dynamic speaker, or that require massive and unsustainable amounts of money? Our devotion to fragile systems means as the pace of cultural

When I seek contentment in God’s blessings my wants only subside temporarily, and they soon return stronger than ever. When I learn to seek my satisfaction in God himself, however, the pleasures offered by the things of this world grow dim in comparison.