Sometimes I watch people make a foolish decision and I think “yup, that could be me, I have definitely been that dumb before”. Other times I was people make a decision and I just don’t understand. I don’t grasp how they got to that point or how their priorities could be so far from what the Bible teaches are the right priorities to a successful life.
Hear are 7 actions that I can’t get my head around. I will love you, I will try to sympathise, I will try and empathise; but I just don’t get it!
7. People who skip church to take their children to a park/ grandma’s/ football/ cinema/ party. You have just trained your children to take the assembling together of the saints lightly. As your children grow older, and eventually leave home, being in church will be one of the most powerful influences to keep them on fire for God and for Jesus. If you treat church as an inviolable part of your calendar, your children will develop the same character.
6. People who don’t monitor their children’s TV watching and internet usage. They did a survey a number of years ago and found out that the children in Christian homes who grow up into adults who are still walking with the Lord are those who didn’t have a TV or internet connection in their bedroom. Those who did, were not. The correlation was almost perfect, in other words – get that TV out of their room, and get a decent Net Nanny service.
5. People who turn up on time for work, for dates, for the cinema, for weddings, for funerals, for job interviews, for a train journey, for an aeroplane journey, for dinner, for the theatre, for a restaurant booking, for school, for college, for the PTA meeting; but still manage to walk in late to church every week as if somehow the journey to church and the things they have to do to get ready catches them by surprise. I think it surprises some people to realize that we craft the 2 hour service as a unit, the opening, the declarations, the worship all lead into the preaching and the whole service is crafted to lift you and your mind to transform your life.
4. People who scream and shout and dance like crazy at their team kicking a ball in the goal, but when it comes to worshipping God stand like they have an ironing board stuck down the back of their shirt. Let’s give God some glory – let’s kneel, dance, shout, stand, lift our hands, clap, stamp and make some noise!
3. People who know 100 bad jokes for every occasion, have memorized all the player’s stats for the season, but have never learned a single Bible verse. Not knowing a Bible verse means going out into a combat without your sword guys. Get some Word in your head!
2. People who will drive 5 hours to go to a conference to hear the latest cool guest speaker but who think 40 minutes is too far to go to a decent local church. I know which one will help you more in the long run, and it’s not the latest cool guest speaker.
- People who don’t write down their goals. You go from 30% likely to achieve your goals to 71% likely just by *writing them down*. We need to move forward – write your goals down and start to dream big.
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