Jesus, I Will Anchor My Trust in You (Because You Promise First)

“Let not your heart be troubled. You are trusting God, now trust in me. There are many homes up there where my Father lives, and I am going to prepare them for your coming. When everything is ready, then I will come and get you, so that you can always be with me where I am. If this weren’t so, I would tell you plainly”
(John 14:-3, The Living Bible)

After shocking hearing what Lord Jesus said about Judas’s betrayal, Peter’s future denial, and His own imminent death, the disciples must have been confused and troubled (read John 13:28). So Jesus told them to anchor their trust in Him. Jesus said that He and the Father would prepare a place for the disciples while He was gone and that – He would return for them.

Jesus knew He would be taken forcefully from them, falsely accused, tortured and crucified. He knew the disciples would scatter and hide, their faith will be strongly tested. So He encouraged them to anchor on to their trust in God and to trust in Him. Later, Jesus told the disciples why He had given them glimpses of the future: “I have told you these things before they happen so that when they do, you’ll believe in me” (John 14:29). When Judas’s betrayal and Peter’s denial happened, they would believe that Jesus was who He said He was. After all, He had predicted those very events. Thus the disciples could be confident that everything (all!) that Jesus had predicted and promised would come true.

Jesus had said that He would “prepare” homes for them (for us) – in His Father’s house – and He reaffirmed that promise over and over again, adding that eventually they would “always be with [Jesus]”, reunited forever with the Father in heaven.

Jesus’ promises to the disciples really encourage me personally and I hope to you too. Throughout His time with His followers, Jesus had warned them about opposition ahead of them. He had always told them the truth, even the predictions of pain, separation, rejection and persecution. And everything happened just as He said! So we can believe His words about the future too. What a glorious future that will be! Together with Jesus forever! In the meantime, during our struggles and sorrows, we anchor our trust in Him. When we feel lonely and abandoned, we anchor in Him. When we don’t know what to do or which way to turn, we anchor in Him. Remember, Jesus is preparing a place, our place now. “If this weren’t so, I would tell you plainly.”

THINK BIG. START SMALL. GO DEEP.

Sometimes You Win, Sometimes You Learn (Get Your FREE BOOK Here!)

“Difficulties come to you at the right time to help you grow and move forward by overcoming them. The only real misfortune, the only real tragedy come when we suffer without learning the lesson”
(Emmet Fox)

If you’re going to lose – and you are because everyone does – then why not turn it into a gain? How do you do that? By learning from it. A loss isn’t totally a loss if you learn something as a result of it. Your loses can come to define you if you let them. If you stay where a loss leaves you, then eventually you can get stuck there. But know this: Your choices will begin to declare you. You can choose to change, grow, and learn from your losses.

That, of course, is not necessarily easy. In a favourite Peanuts comic strip Charlie Brown walks away from Lucy after a baseball game, head down, totally dejected. “Another ball game lost! Good grief!” Charlie moans. “I get tired of losing. Everything I do, I lose!” “Look at it this way, Charlie Brown,” Lucy replies. “We learn more from losing than we do from winning.” “That makes me the smartest person in the world!” replies Charlie.

It’s a good thought, but not everyone learns from his losses. A loss doesn’t turn into a lesson unless we work hard to make it so. Losing gives us an opportunity to learn, but many people do not seize it. And when they don’t, losing really hurts.

Learning is not easy during down times because it requires us to do things that are not natural. It is hard to smile when we are not happy. It is difficult to positively respond when numb with defeat. It takes discipline to do the right thing when everything is wrong. How can we be emotionally strong when we are emotionally exhausted? How will we face others when we are humiliated? How do we get back up when we are continually knocked down?

In his book Sometimes You Win – Sometimes You Learn (2013), John C. Maxwell wants to help you to answer these and others questions about learning from losses. John believes you can do that using this road maps:

Humility: The Spirit of Learning

Reality: The Foundation of Learning

Responsibility: The First Step of Learning

Improvement: The Focus of Learning

Hope: The Motivation of Learning

Teachability: The Pathway of Learning

Adversity: The Catalyst for Learning

Problems: Opportunities for Learning

Bad Experiences: The Perspective for Learning

Change: The Price of Learning

Maturity: The Value of Learning

I want to give you a FREE COPY of this book – hardcover with large print – if you can answer (comment on my blog post below) these three simple questions: #1 What is your personal motto or favourite quote on failure? #2) Who or what is your main inspiration to move forward in life? And 3) Why you got to have a copy of this book? There are only THREE (3) COPIES AVAILABLE, get your copy now! [Malaysian readers only]

THINK BIG. START SMALL. GO DEEP.

Young Men and Women, Consider the Meekness of Jesus

“I am gentle and humble in heart…”
(Matthew 11:29, NIV)

In these words, Jesus crowned the modest grace of meekness queen of virtues. In the Lord’s time, as in our own, meekness was regarded as feminine and self-abasing. Do we not usually associate the word with someone who is insignificant and labours under an inferiority complex?

The word “meekness” was one of the great ethical words of the Greeks. Aristotle, the philosopher, viewed it as the happy mean between two extremes: between too much anger and too little anger, for example. It was also used of the breaking-in of a horse in which the animal learned to accept control and bow to the will of another. With this background, let us consider its application to the Lord.

It might be said that meekness plus lowliness equals humility. Meekness is humility toward God. Lowliness is humility toward men. Jesus claimed both qualities for Himself. For this it is clear that meekness is not the equivalent of mildness or weakness of character. His activity in cleansing the Temple (John 2; Mark 11) was anything but mild. Meekness is strong, but it is strength held in control. When the glory of God is involved, the meek person can fight with vigour.

In what ways did Jesus display this lowly grace? He demonstrated it in His boyhood when, after His experience in the Temple, He went home and was subject to His parents (Luke 2:41-52). Without complaint He was willing to perform the lowliest duties. He made ploughs and yokes for the farmers of Nazareth. What an occupation for Him who made the world! He meekly accepted the Father’s plan for His life, even though it involved exchanging the freedom of the universe for the restrictions of a village carpenter’s shop.

Jesus was meek in His dealings with fallen humanity – even His own disciples – with doubting Thomas, with traitorous Judas, with denying Peter, and with thunderous James and John. Meekness is essentially the attitude that does not insist on its own rights, but it always ready to let go of privilege in the interests of others. Is this grace prominent in our lives? Meekness is measured by what we can endure without complaint or retaliation or demanding our rights. The meek person is willingly to submit to the will of God.  

How can we learn this grace of meekness?

“The fruit of the Spirit is… meekness” (Galatians 5:22-23, ASV).

THINK BIG. START SMALL. GO DEEP.

Letters to Annie: Don’t Worry about Others’ Opinions

Dear Annie,

            Love, I just want to share with you this story…

            A variation on one of Aesop’s fables tells of a wise man whose son was ashamed to leave the house because he thought other people would think him ugly. The father told him that he shouldn’t worry so much what other people though, and to follow his own mind and heart. To make the point, the father asked his son to join him on his trips to the market over the next few days.

On the first day, the father rode the donkey, and the child walked alongside. As they travelled they could hear passersby criticizing the father for making a small child walk in the heat of the day.

On the second day, the child rode the donkey, while the father walked alongside him. This time people commented about how disrespectful the child was for making an old man walk while he rode in comfort.

On the third day they entered the market, both walking alongside the donkey. They heard the people saying how stupid they were: “Do they not know that donkeys are for riding?”

The following day, both father and son rode on the donkey, and people expressed their indignation about how cruel they were to burden the animal in such a way.

On the fifth day they carried the donkey on their backs. Everyone in the market laughed and ridiculed them.

The wise man then turned to his son and said: “You see, regardless of what you do, there’ll always be people who will disapprove. Therefore, don’t worry about others’ opinions, and do what you think is just and right.”

I think you might need this: Annie, if you are constantly worried about what other people think, you will never get to where you need to go in life. You are going to have to do things that don’t always meet people’s standards. You will come into situations where you have to put your pride, and your reputation on the line to get what God wants you to have in life. If you are constantly worried about what people are thinking, you will never have the will to do what’s right. God’s approval matters the most; while people’s approval will expired soon.

I love you,

Rich

THINK BIG. START SMALL. GO DEEP.

Young Men and Women, Consider the Love of Jesus

“[The] love of Christ… this love that surpasses knowledge”
(Ephesians 3:18-19, NIV)

Love expresses itself in a seemingly contradictory way. Parental love expresses itself in a wholesome and loving discipline, not in the indulgence of a child’s every whim. But not every child appreciates this expression of love. It is the same with the Lord’s children. In the gospels, three expressions of Christ’s love are recorded for our instruction. In each case it is stated that the Lord loved the person involved.

We learn first that Christ’s love corrects the one whom He loves. Speaking of the young ruler, Mark says, “Jesus looked at him and loved him” (10:21). And what did His love move Him to do? Jesus saw that the young man had many attractive qualities, but he lacked the greatest essential. He discerned the fatal flaw in the life of the ruler and dealt faithfully with him about it. The young man clinging to his great possessions, he sacrificed the greatest Possession. So will our divine Lord put His unerring finger on our fatal flaw, the thing that will rob us of His highest blessings? Shall we ask him to show us what that thing is?

Next we see that Christ’s love allows suffering by His loved ones. “Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister [Mary] and Lazarus” (John 11:5). Jesus spent more time in their home than in any other. Was He soft and indulgent with this favoured family? No, He was not. He did not intervene to prevent Lazarus from dying. He did not spare the sisters the heartbreak of seeing him slowly slip away. Rather, He waited two days before responding to their appeal for help. Did He not care? He cared so much that He permitted their suffering.

And what was His purpose? “So that you may believe” (John 11:15). The cultivation of faith was the object of the discipline. After their trail, they had an immeasurably greater Lord, and their suffering has been used to impart comfort and insight to succeeding generations of believers.

Last, Christ’s love cleanses us. “Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end… [He] began to wash his disciples’ feet” (John 13:1, 5). At that moment, He was on His way to cleanse their defiled souls with His blood, but He paused to give a matchless demonstration of the humility of love. No task is too menial for love. Jesus washed their feet with water, and then with blood from the basin of the cross.

[Edited, modified and modernized from Consider Him (1976) by J. Oswald Sanders]

THINK BIG. START SMALL. GO DEEP.

Young Men and Women, Consider the Mind of Jesus

“In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus”

(Philippians 2:5, NIV)

In this great Christological passage, Paul throws out a starling challenge: Reflect in your own mind the mind of Christ. The mind of Christ was more than His thinking processes; it was His entire inner disposition. It included His thoughts and motives and desires. Because we reflect the mind of Christ so imperfectly, we make a very slight impression on the cynical world around us. J. Stuart Holden writes: “The world does not believe in Him whom it has not seen, because it has cause not to believe in us whom it has seen.”

The mind of Christ is seen operating on two levels in this passage. On the level of deity, Christ did not count equality with God and its attendant majesty something to retained and grasped at all costs. He did not greedily cling to His rights as God’s equal. Instead, He emptied Himself. He resigned all His outward glory, veiled His majesty, and accepted the limitations involved in assuming human form. He could never be less than God, but He renounced the outward display of His majesty and glory. Yielding up the independent exercise of His divine attributes, He became a servant. “Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus” (KJV).

The mind of Christ displayed on the level of humanity. “He humbled himself” (v.8). We have every season to humble ourselves, but it was not so with Him. He did not demand, as He might well have done, such a standard of treatment as befitted His dignity. Instead of a palace, He chose a manger. His throne was a carpenter’s bench, and His sceptre a hammer. His university was a village school. So low did He stoop in His self-humiliation that He accepted the lowest step – death on the cross.

This display of His mind was progressive. It began in His thinking, led to self-abasement, and culminated in self-oblation. Sacrificial love led Him to take these downward steps, and we are to follow His example. His mind was the exact reverse of the worldly mind that revels in position and power; that considers wealth and possessions the greatest good; that delights in being served rather than in serving others; that shrinks from suffering and shame. “Have the same mindset.” “Let this mind be in you.”

[Edited, modified and modernized from Consider Him (1976) by J. Oswald Sanders]

THINK BIG. START SMALL. GO DEEP.

Young Men and Women, Consider the Unchanging Jesus

“Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever”
(Hebrews 13:8, NIV)

No one can doubt that we are living in a changing world. Indeed, the rate of change in every realm of life is so rapid that we find it impossible to keep pace with its multifaceted movements. H.F. Lyte’s hymn is more appropriate today than when he wrote it:

Change and decay in all around I see,

O Thou who changest not, abide with me.

In the midst of our changing and unstable world stands the unchanging Christ. In Hebrews 13:7, the writer exhorts Christians to remember their former teachers; but in verse 8, he turns their eyes to Jesus, who is always the same. All that He was in the past, He is in the present and will be in the future.

Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, will care for all our yesterdays. Our past sometimes haunts and even paralyses us, and the devil delights to keep us chained to it. But the changeless Christ is able to cleanse us from all the guilt and defilement of the past. He is able to deliver us even from the tyranny of memory. We must not allow the devil to resurrect what God has forgotten. We should remember, too, that for the believer He is the God of the second chance. “Lord, who is a God like you? You forgive sin. You forgive your people when they do what is wrong. You don’t stay angry forever. Instead, you take delight in showing your faithful love to them” (Micah 7:18).

Jesus Christ, the same today, will take care of all our todays. He who delivers from the tyranny of the past will dissolve the complexity of the present. And how insoluble they often seem – cares of family, health, finance, business, age, etc. But no problem is really new; they are common to all ages. Jesus experienced family problems. He had no money to pay His tax. He wept in sorrow with Mary. He can solve temperamental problems as He did with Peter. As Great Physician, He can help in our physical problems.

Jesus Christ, the same for ever, is well able to care for all our tomorrows. He is able to dispel the uncertainties of the future. We are all apt to succumb to fear. There are fears that assail us at every stage of life. Fear of the future can cripple us in meeting the demands of the present. But in the midst of life’s uncertainties stands One who is utterly dependable and entirely competent. Trust Him fully.

[Edited, modified and modernized from Consider Him (1976) by J. Oswald Sanders]

THINK BIG. START SMALL. GO DEEP.