Hey guys,
I was going through my blog role this morning and thought that the almost famous "Gadfly" deserved a blogspot from me. Click here for the blog. His stuff is usually exceptional reading anyways, but I was very encouraged by his Sept. 9th entry. It happens to be his most recent one as of today. Give it a read!
PS - Some of my regular blog rollers are using the "Blogger Beta" now. For whatever reason I am not able to post comments on their blogs sometimes, but I am reading. So, just because I can't comment sometimes doesn't mean I've stopped reading! Keep on bloggin.
Thursday, September 14, 2006
Friday, September 08, 2006
Childhood Memories
This weekend I spent about 4 hours going through old stuff at my parents place. The goal of my time there was to get my Lego collection off the display shelf and dusted and put away, which I accomplished, but I also went through my old toys and such and relived some of my favorite times as a kid.
Things I loved when I was a kid were simple. I loved action figures, Nerf guns, and Legos. I would play with them for hours. If any of you remember in my old room I had a huge 12 foot long shelf covered in Lego models. Some of them were complicated, some of them were really simple. The one thing they had in common was that I built all of them and thought that they were the bomb. And they were, I remember my friends coming over and telling me how lucky I was to have so many Lego sets. I was a lucky kid. I also loved playing with my Nerf guns. I remember having Nerf wars with my buddies all throughout my childhood. We set up targets, which were our faces most of the time, and would shoot those darts everywhere in the house. It was uber fun and not painful like Airsoft.
Then we found all of my old action figures. I’ve had some of them since I was 5, and they still work! My Superman figure still has his super punching action, my Flash still has his super running action! Why do they still work? Because I took excellent care of them. That was one of the things that I really remembered about my childhood. My parents did an excellent job of instilling a sense of value to me. I took care of things that I valued and in the end, I still have them b/c of my care for them. The same applies to our relationships with people.
If you value your friends and relationships and take the time to take care of them, they in turn will take care of you and be around when you need them. The typified response to relational management is most often the best. “Do unto others as you would have them do to you,” more commonly known as the “Golden Rule” is the epitome of relational maintenance. If you want to be treated fairly, treat other with fairness, if you want other to show you grace and mercy, show them grace and mercy. Not only is this idea recognized as a standard within the academic community on relational maintenance, it’s Biblical. Isn’t that ironic that the God of the universe setup a system that works? Actually, it’s not ironic at all, but its funny to think it is. Matthew 22:34-40 says,
“34Hearing that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, the Pharisees got together. 35One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question:
36"Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?" 37Jesus replied: " 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.'[b] 38This is the first and greatest commandment. 39And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.'[c] 40All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments."”
Love your neighbor as yourself, hmmm, sounds kinda like the Golden Rule eh? The other thing that really stands out to me about this passage is the last phrase, “All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” Basically what I take this to mean is, its not only recommended that you treat others with care, but a requirement for a successful relationship with Christ. The Christian life is relational, not only between you and Christ, but between you and other believers. Last night at Fuel, one of Tim’s points was that the Christian life cannot be lived alone. In fact we are commanded to interact with believers and encourage each other. 1 Thes. 4:18 says “18Therefore encourage one another with these words.” 1 Thes. 5:9-11 also states “9For God has not destined us for wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, 10who died for us so that whether we are awake or asleep we might live with him. 11Therefore encourage one another and build one another up, just as you are doing.”
So if that’s not biblical proof that we should treat each other with respect and dignity, I don’t know what is.
So what can we learn with my trip down memory lane? Love God first and then love people. If you do, everything will work out fine.
Things I loved when I was a kid were simple. I loved action figures, Nerf guns, and Legos. I would play with them for hours. If any of you remember in my old room I had a huge 12 foot long shelf covered in Lego models. Some of them were complicated, some of them were really simple. The one thing they had in common was that I built all of them and thought that they were the bomb. And they were, I remember my friends coming over and telling me how lucky I was to have so many Lego sets. I was a lucky kid. I also loved playing with my Nerf guns. I remember having Nerf wars with my buddies all throughout my childhood. We set up targets, which were our faces most of the time, and would shoot those darts everywhere in the house. It was uber fun and not painful like Airsoft.
Then we found all of my old action figures. I’ve had some of them since I was 5, and they still work! My Superman figure still has his super punching action, my Flash still has his super running action! Why do they still work? Because I took excellent care of them. That was one of the things that I really remembered about my childhood. My parents did an excellent job of instilling a sense of value to me. I took care of things that I valued and in the end, I still have them b/c of my care for them. The same applies to our relationships with people.
If you value your friends and relationships and take the time to take care of them, they in turn will take care of you and be around when you need them. The typified response to relational management is most often the best. “Do unto others as you would have them do to you,” more commonly known as the “Golden Rule” is the epitome of relational maintenance. If you want to be treated fairly, treat other with fairness, if you want other to show you grace and mercy, show them grace and mercy. Not only is this idea recognized as a standard within the academic community on relational maintenance, it’s Biblical. Isn’t that ironic that the God of the universe setup a system that works? Actually, it’s not ironic at all, but its funny to think it is. Matthew 22:34-40 says,
“34Hearing that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, the Pharisees got together. 35One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question:
36"Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?" 37Jesus replied: " 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.'[b] 38This is the first and greatest commandment. 39And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.'[c] 40All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments."”
Love your neighbor as yourself, hmmm, sounds kinda like the Golden Rule eh? The other thing that really stands out to me about this passage is the last phrase, “All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” Basically what I take this to mean is, its not only recommended that you treat others with care, but a requirement for a successful relationship with Christ. The Christian life is relational, not only between you and Christ, but between you and other believers. Last night at Fuel, one of Tim’s points was that the Christian life cannot be lived alone. In fact we are commanded to interact with believers and encourage each other. 1 Thes. 4:18 says “18Therefore encourage one another with these words.” 1 Thes. 5:9-11 also states “9For God has not destined us for wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, 10who died for us so that whether we are awake or asleep we might live with him. 11Therefore encourage one another and build one another up, just as you are doing.”
So if that’s not biblical proof that we should treat each other with respect and dignity, I don’t know what is.
So what can we learn with my trip down memory lane? Love God first and then love people. If you do, everything will work out fine.
Friday, September 01, 2006
Publicons
Fun site I found, www.publicons.de.
Its in german but its not difficult to figure out. Here's what it can do.
Pretty cool IMHO. Talk about branding
Its in german but its not difficult to figure out. Here's what it can do.
Pretty cool IMHO. Talk about branding
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)