Getting a Grip on Your Life

Kopp Disclosure

(John 3:19-21)

 

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Getting a Grip on Your Life

(Genesis 4:7; Romans 7:15-25; 1 Corinthians 6:12)

 

          You may have heard about the woman who said, “I can quit smoking anytime that I want to quit; and I know that for a fact because I’ve quit a thousand times before.”

          You’ve probably heard of the man who prayed, “O God, give me patience and give it to me right now!”

          We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again because it’s one of life’s greatest struggles.  Temptations are bad things that taste good; which explains why we fall to ‘em more than we’d like.

          Whether it’s eating too much or not eating enough, substance abuse, sexual misconduct, gossip, and all of the other bad behaviors that hurt others, ourselves, and Him – “As you do it to them,” Jesus said, “you do it to Me!” – everybody, except for the deluded and self-righteous who think they’re God’s other son, feels like Paul on too many personally disappointing occasions: “I don’t understand what I do.  For what I want to do, I don’t do…Sin is living in me…I have a sinful nature…I am constantly sinning even when I don’t want to…I do bad things when I want to do good things…I keep on doing it…I can’t seem to get a grip on my life.”

          It’s always been that way.

          It started in the garden when God told the Adamsons to stay away from just one tree and they couldn’t resist the temptation to take a big bite from the dark side.

          Their first boy Cain was jealous and angry with his baby brother Abel, couldn’t control himself, and murdered him.  You can read the whole story in Genesis 4.

          Notice how God told Cain to get a grip on his life before he succumbed to the temptation to murder his brother: “Sin is crouching at your door.  It desires to have you; but you must master it.”

          After writing about the sin always ready to pounce and seduce and plunge us into bad behaviors that hurt others, ourselves, and God, Paul made this pledge: “I will not be mastered by anything but God.”

          No one is immune to the problem that has plagued humanity since the garden.

          We do bad things.

          It’s in our nature.

          It’s part of being human.

          The good news is we can get better; or as Don Skarr likes to say, “We’ll never be sinless; but we can sin less.”

          Here’s the answer.

          Jesus!

          The closer we get to Jesus, the farther away that we’ll move from behaviors that hurt others, ourselves, and Him.

          Or as Jesus said, “We can be born anothen.”

          We can get so close to Jesus, more and more filling our hearts with

 

Him so that there’s less and less room for those negative instincts, that we feel like we’re new and fresh and, please excuse the grammar here, more better than more worse.

          It’s what Paul called the fruit/proof/evidence of being tight and tighter and tighter with God.

          When we’re close to God we experience more love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, fidelity, gentleness, humility, and self-control.

          In short, we get a grip on our lives by getting closer to God.

          We do that by replacing who and what want to master us with the Master!

          Conversely, when we see someone, maybe even the reflection in the mirror, who is not very loving or miserable more often than not or impatient and contentious and not very good or kind or faithful or gentle or humble or self-controlled, it means that person cannot be that close to God; because, again, when people are close to God and getting closer to God, they get more better than more worse and become more loving, joyful, peaceful, patient, kind, good, faithful, gentle, humble, and self-controlled.

          So that’s the truth according to Jesus by the book.

          If we want to get away from bad behaviors, we’ll get closer to God.

          If we want to get a grip on our lives, we’ll get tight with the Master and we’ll master all of the rest.

 

          Another quick truth – the most important of all.

          After Paul admitted he could get better by getting close to God, meaning we can get better by getting closer to God, he also admitted that he and us would never be pure and perfect in every way; which prompted him to exclaim, “Thanks be to God who gives us the victory through Jesus!  Thanks be to God who bridges the gap by grace through faith in Jesus!  Thanks be to God who forgives what we could not master if we turn to Him as Master, invite Him into our hearts as Lord and Savior, and pray and try to get closer and closer and closer to Him and more better than more worse as gratitude and praise.

          Speaking of truth, I read some books while convalescing back in October from my hip toss.

          One that really caught my attention was Treason by Newt Gingrich. Back then, I never thought he would be anything more than an author who, unlike me, actually writes books that people read and be an occasional commentator for CNN and Fox.  Anyway as someone who has been to the Middle East about 8 times and studied Islam by their book and founder rather than the made up PC version being hawked by ignorant members of the media, government, and education, I was encouraged by these truthful excerpts about the Islam by the book and its founder: “Muslims can’t claim Islam is a peace-loving religion when the Quran openly calls for violence against nonbelievers…Western intelligence services claim radicals make

 

up fifteen to twenty-five percent of all Muslims…that’s 180 million to 300 million radical jihadists who want to murder nonbelievers…

          Consider that a bonus message.

          Another book that I read was A Life in Parts by Bryan Cranston.

          He starred as Walter White in the mega-award-winning series Breaking Bad. 

          The story is complicated; but, basically, it’s about a man who engages in bad behaviors because he wants more money to take care of his family and, well, his personal greedy appetite.

          Cranston sums up Walter White’s motive in the book: “He wants to leave something behind.  We all do.”

          Here’s the final truth of this message.

          Unless we’re totally egocentric and narcissistic and other bad things that prove we’ve never broken the genetic chains to the Adamsons and their bad boy Cain and been born anothen by grace through faith in Jesus, we want to leave something good behind.

          We can.

          All we have to do is turn to the Master and no one or no thing will ever master us again…completely…and forever.

          Jesus is the answer to every question.

          He is how we can get a grip on our lives.

 

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Blessings and Love!

 

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Shatter the sound of silence!

 

Wake up!  Look up!  Stand up!  Speak up!  Act up for Jesus!

 

Salt!  Shine!  Leavenate!

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Lessons from Farmers, Chickens, Brian Williams, and Bill O'Reilly

Kopp Disclosure

(John 3:19-21)

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Lessons from Farmers, Chickens, Brian Williams, and Bill O'Reilly

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"As you do it to/for them, you do it to/for Me; and when

you don't do it to/for them, you don't to it to/for Me."

Jesus

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    While I'm still scratching the surface of my relationship with Jesus and know anybody who thinks they've arrived hasn't started, I'm really ignorant when it comes to farming.

    Sure, I know the Bible is full of stories about farmers; but as Karl Barth used to say about preachers, "It's not a matter of whether one wants to...[do something]...but whether one can...[do something].

    God gives the talents/gifts/charismata to us and then we're responsible for their stewardship; or as heard long ago, "God gives choices to us but we, ourselves, must choose."  You can read more about that in Romans 12 and 1 Corinthians 12.

    Still, while Belvidere and neighboring communities in Boone, McHenry, and Winnebago Counties, Illinois are changing rapidly and can be no longer be considered exclusively agricultural, I've learned a lot from farmers over the years.

    Not long before Maynard "Skee" Bye went home to Jesus back on February 9, 2011, I asked what happens when there's bad weather or something else affecting crops.  He said calmly and confidently with a smile, "You go with what you get."

    He talked about good years and bad years and being prepared to "go with what you get."

    He said farmers don't get too down about bad years because they know there will be good years; and they don't get too high in good years because they know bad years are inevitable.

    Skee taught me about the patience, stability, and balance that are indispensable to farming; and how those strong and calm character traits enable and ennoble any industry.

    Farmers like Skee have  taught me about the ebb and flow and predictability of life on the farm that's a metaphorical model for living with sanity and serenity no matter what happens.

    Plant in spring.

    Knee-high by the 4th of July.

    Harvest.

    Rest.

    Repair.

    Then do it all over again and again and again and...

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    Farmers have also helped me to understand the pecking order in the hen house as a metaphor for where two or three or more are not always gathered in His name with love for all as love for Him: "As you do it to/for them; you do it to/for Me; and when you don't do it to/for them, you don't do it to/for Me."

    As explained to me, chickens have this nasty habit of always picking out one chicken as their scapegoat/victim for angry venting about something - picking and pecking at that chicken until it's crippled or dies; and when that chicken has been dispensed to assuage whatever kinda pathologies plague chickens, another chicken is picked immediately to continue the spiral of transferred violence.

    There's nothing redemptive about it; kinda like those Islamofascistnutball savages who are sooooooo sick and pretend their pathetic pathologies are somehow related to an irenic religion.  President Trump is right.  They're not warriors for some higher cause.  They're losers.

    Gossip comes to mind; or as gossipers wish secretly in the deepest recesses of their sick souls, "If I can't actually snuff 'em, I'll kill their reputations with my words and maybe push them to..."

    People feel much better about themselves by talking pejoratively, demeaningly, and destructively - picking and pecking like those chickens in the hen house - about other people.

    It's really sick; but, apparently, works for 'em because it never stops.

    Again, kinda like hen houses.

    Whoever's on the bottom of any social organization's hierarchy - even in churches that should know better if they know Jesus better than worse - better watch out for those picking and pecking puckered-up lips and poisoned-tipped claws.

    I'm reminded of one of my three associate pastors in Kansas City.

    Whenever we'd have a staff meeting, he'd tell me how the other pastors weren't doing their jobs so that I'd be distracted from how he wasn't doing his job; lighting fires in their back yards so I wouldn't notice his house was burning down.

    It's from the Vince Lombardi school of winning strategy: "The best defense is a good offense."

    One of humanity's sickest character traits that started in the garden is to blame somebody else for our problems or pick and peck at somebody else to avoid the reflection in the mirror and distract others from seeing our problems.

    It's only natural.

    We feel better about ourselves by picking and pecking at those who we've decided aren't as worthy or good or nice or noble or pretty or cultured or respectable or entitled or...whatever...as we are.

    It's so delusional and hallucinatory and sick that it proves America has lost the war on drugs.

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    I think of Brian Williams and Bill O'Reilly.

    While both have been disgraced, degraded, demoted, and professionally destroyed - Williams for lying repeatedly and O'Reilly for being perpetually horny - they have more in common than their previous constituencies would care to admit.

    Williams was the darling of soccer moms, junior leaguers, mushbrains to the left, form over content crowd, and other femininized citizens.

    O'Reilly epitomized those Neanderthal traditionalists that Jesus mocked who long for the way things never were or maybe were but are no more. 

    Ideologically, they were not on the same page; yet, they still had a lot in common.

    Both were products of private and privileged not public-level-the-playing-field education, Irish descent, and became quite wealthy by rising rapidly to the top of the food chain as television news anchors.

    You can learn more about 'em by googling 'em; which isn't necessary because their idolaters continue to overlook their humanities in desperate supplications for their professional resurrections.

    Their greatest commonality is they were/remain hated; and they were/are not hated mostly for their ideologies or privileges but because lots of people are jealous of those who are more productive than they are and relish the fall of icons.

    Make no mistake about it.

    There are lots of people who savored them falling from favor, popularity, position, power, and prosperity.

    What's more exciting to lots of people?

    Checkered flag or sensational crash?

    What made Evel Knieval more famous?

    Jumping over cars or breaking bones?

    Why do people hate the Packers, Patriots, Steelers, Yankees, Cardinals, Cubs, Crusaders, Titans, and President Trump so unreasonably and irrationally and hysterically and pathologically?

    They're winners and producers not losers and looters and have very, very, very large fan clubs.

    Losers hate winners and want them to be destroyed; and it's especially aggravating to losers to know winners have them in the rearview mirror.  Or as an old pastor said to me just before ordination, "When you get out there, just remember, if they're nippin' at your heels, they're behind you."

    Barbara Streisand hit it right on the head of losers: "Americans love to build up people so they can tear them down."

    Gossip, anyone?

    Hell, yeah!

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    Jesus loves everyone with no favoritism or partiality.

    Read the red letters and apostle for more on that.

    As confirmand Owin Hunter said so eloquently and correctly on May 21, 2017 as he was received into church membership and spoke about the priesthood of all believers, "We are equal in value while different in function by God's design."

    He also said, "Only God defines who we are."

    God's verdict is clear.

    We're worth His life; and He says loving Him back in gratitude for confident living and eternal life is best expressed by loving others just like He has loved us: "Love each other just as much as I have loved you...As you do it to/for them, you do it to/for Me; and when you don't do it to/for them, you don't do it to/for Me...Whoever loves Me like I love them is a member of My family."

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    There's a story out of the South about that/Him/His going back to our civil rights struggle.

    After a terribly violent riot, a young boy was lying dead in the gutter.

    Looking down at the boy, a deputy said to the sheriff, "Well, that's one more dead..."

    The sheriff slapped the deputy to the ground and yelled, "That's some mommy and daddy's little baby boy and don't you ever forget it!"

    The next time that you're tempted to gossip or look the other way as Islamofascistnutballs and other savages prowl around to ravage while thanking God that you're deluded enough to think you're safe, just remember that "they" are members of His family and our family if we are really members of His family.

    That's some mommy and daddy's little baby girl or boy and don't you ever forget it!"

    God's!

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    So let's boil this down.

    Genealogists as well as women and men of Biblically Christocentric faith know everyone has been a part of the same family since the garden.

    Everyone's roots can be traced back to the garden.

    In other words, when we're doing it to/for them as doing it to/for Him or not doing it to/for Him by not doing it to/for them, we're hurting His family which is our family if we're really members of His family.

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    Farmers and anyone else planting good seeds know pecking orders hurt business; or as one 12 year old said long ago for the Godly, "Don't you know?  We must be about our Father's business."

    That's what every part of His family has in common.

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Blessings and Love!

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Shatter the sound of silence!

Wake up!  Look up!  Stand up!  Speak up!  Act up for Jesus!

Salt!  Shine!  Leavenate!

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America's Thanatos Libido

Kopp Disclosure

(John 3:19-21)

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"I am the way, the truth, and the life."

Jesus

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    I can't stand watching the news anymore.

    Aside from the arrogant, condescending, often smug, and usually pretentious anchors and their supporting casts, it's sooooooo nauseating to watch politicians mugging for cameras and making Narcissus look humble.

    Noting an increasing disdain for media and political types is undeniable, they are irrelevant to most Americans.

    With the dumbing down of our culture to bytes, tweets, texts, and Facebooking, reading more than a fragment or listening to more than a cameo is rare.

    Writing enough non-best-selling books to get the hint, I remember a gap-toothed poser enlightening me while trying to hawk I Just Wanna Ride in Sturgis, "Doh, uh, yeppah, I'd buy that there book of yourn but don't read much anyhows."

    Collegians can't spell Shakespeare and think the Bill of Rights means they're entitled to free stuff.

    Whether it's print journalism or the alphabet soup networks on the dope box, their audiences are shrinking and mostly consist of self-gratifying peers.

    Politicians rank even lower than media types and even clergy in polling public estimates.

    If they're not pandering for votes or voting like Pavlovian dog drones as their Skinnerian box parties dictate, they're ripping off producers for looters or their own self-indulgent appetites with no apologies to Ayn Rand or truth, justice, and the American Way.

    Forget Jesus.

    They have.

    Bobby Knight may have been a boorish Hossier on occasion, but he got it right in a recent blurt to Tucker Carlson: "To hell with the Republicans and Democrats!"

    Well, I don't want that literally for 'em because I'm with Jesus who wants everybody saved; yet our politicians in Springfield, D.C., and wherever two or three of 'em are not gathered in His name like mainline denominational meetings are "making people twice as fit for hell as they are themselves."

    Along with the mindless, feckless, reckless, shallow, superficial, and emotionally fragile cupcakes to their left and right, their blathering on and on and on about everything that they know nothing about apart from their own stomachs laced with ignorance is blurred by hysteria, histrionics, innuendo, gossip, and mostly, redundantly, again, unseemly self-righteous narcissism.

    For example, have you listened to the left on Trump or right on Clinton?

    If anyone with any real authority took 'em seriously, we'd execute Donald and Hillary before sundown!

    Fortunately, and I may be wrong on this, most Americans, and maybe that's only a slim majority anymore, don't believe Hillary would make Nazis blush as the architect and advocate of mass murder via partial birth abortion and aren't convinced Donald is a Russian spy conspiring with Putin to reincarnate the Soviet Union.

    Sadly, with the relentless help of our government and media enabled by public education, entertainment, and clergy who think it's better to quote Jonathan Livingston Seagull than Jesus, America's self-loathing thanatos libido seems to be gaining traction as our collective national prayer is muted: "Long may our land be bright with freedom's holy light.  Protect us by Thy might, great God, our King!"

    Is there any hope for America?

    Is there an answer for what's ailing us?

    Yes.

    Jesus is the answer to every question; but we'll never know if we don't ask, seek, and knock.

    That may be the greatest symptom of America's thanatos libido.

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Blessings and Love!

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Shatter the sound of silence!

Wake up!  Look up!  Stand up!  Speak up!  Act up for Jesus!

Salt!  Shine!  Leavenate!

@#$%

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