Lasting Value

Lasting Value

 Dear Champions,

The short excerpt is by Mark Biller, and the Scripture is Psalm 90:12 Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.

I love the story of Alfred Nobel, as related by Randy Alcorn in his book, The Treasure Principle:  Nobel dropped the newspaper and put his head in his hands. It was 1888.  Nobel was a Swedish chemist who made his fortune inventing and producing dynamite. His brother Ludvig had died in France. But now Alfred's grief was compounded by dismay. He'd just read an obituary in a French newspaper -not his brother's obituary, but his! An editor had confused the brothers.  The headline read, "The Merchant of Death Is Dead." Alfred Nobel's obituary described a man who had gotten rich by helping people kill one another.

 

Shaken by this appraisal of his life, Nobel resolved to use his wealth to change his legacy. When he died eight years later, he left more than $9 million to fund awards for people whose work benefited humanity. The awards became known as the Nobel Prizes. Alfred Nobel had a rare opportunity – to look at the assessment of his life at its end and still have the chance to change it. Before his life was over, Nobel made sure he had invested his wealth in something of lasting value.

 

Each of us chooses, either purposefully or passively, how we invest our time and treasure. The wise man invests his life carefully, using the temporary currencies of this life to gain riches that will last forever. As a poet once wrote, "Only one life, twill soon be past; only what's done for Christ will last."

 

Champions, have a great week!-David Vining

Independence and Interdependence

Independence and Interdependence

 

Dear Champions,

 

The short excerpt is by Tim Keller, and the Scripture is in the excerpt.

 

For men, the gift of independence has a tendency to become autonomy and tyranny.  The female gift of interdependence always has a tendency to become dependent.  In Genesis 3:17-18 after Adam and Eve rebel against God, God says to Adam, "You will sweat and work in the dust of the ground and thorns and thistles will come up."  He says to Eve in Genesis 3:16, "You will have pain in childbearing and your desire will be for your husband, but he will rule over you." 

 

When God curses humanity, He curses different aspects.  When He curses Adam, He curses his work.  He says, "Your need and desire to have an impact on the world, to be independent and to achieve is going to become an idol.  It's going to become too important to you, and you will always be frustrated because it will never give you what you want."  And He turns to the wife, and He curses her relationships.  He says, "You will want your husband desperately, but your husband will rule over you."

 

The teaching is that the wife's interdependence gift under the influence of sin will trip her up.  She will become a dependent person and will want to be taken care of.  The husband whose independent gift is now under the influence of sin, instead of being an independent person, he will be a tyrant and will rule over and master her.  When masculinity and femininity go bad, the independence becomes tyranny in men, and the interdependence becomes dependence in women.

 

The Bible teaches under the influence of sin that men will tend to oppress women, and women will tend to make it easy for them.  The fact is that men and women in marriage are supposed to learn to submit to one another, and the husband is supposed to have a loving authority.  The husband's independence becomes tyranny unless the wife pulls him back.  A man is not to be a tyrant but to be independent, and she needs to pull him back.  In the same way the wife will have a tendency to move toward dependence unless the husband in his strength pulls her back.  There needs to be a completion. 

 

Champions, have a great week!-David Vining

 

Your Glory-Part 2

Your Glory-Part 2

 

Dear Champions,

 

The short excerpt is by Tim Keller (the first paragraph) and Andy Stanley (the second and third paragraph), and the Scripture is Jeremiah 9:23-24 This is what the Lord says: "Let not the wise boast of their wisdom or the strong boast of their strength or the rich boast of their riches, but let the one who boasts boast about this: that they have the understanding to know me, that I am the Lord, who exercises kindness, justice and righteousness on earth, for in these I delight," declares the Lord.

How do you decide whether a watch is a good or a bad watch?  You have to know what it was designed for.  For example, it's terrible at hammering nails – so don't try.  But if it's terrible at hammering nails, that's okay because it's very good at telling me the time.  Therefore, until I know what it is built and designed for, it is impossible to even talk about whether it's a good or a bad watch."

 

Your glory is not a big enough prize to devote your life to.  Begin factoring into your decisions and your life what would be most honoring to God?  You owe it to yourself to ask the question because it is the purpose for which you have been made, and you know this intuitively.  You're going to live for somebody's glory, and God has invited you to live for His.  Ask what would be most honoring to Him.  

 

When you cross the line and start living for God's glory and not your own, something inside of you is going to light up.  There's going to be a freedom that you've never experienced before, and you will step into the purpose for which you were made-to be a reflection of your Creator's glory.  

 

Man's chief in is to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever.

 

Champions, have a great week!-David Vining

Your Glory-Part 1

Your Glory-Part 1

 

Dear Champions,

 

The short excerpt is by Tim Andy Stanley, and the scripture is Psalm 19:1-4 The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands.  Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they reveal knowledge. They have no speech, they use no words; no sound is heard from them.  Yet their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world.

 

You were created to reflect the image and the glory of God.  Your glory is really too small for you to give your life to and live for.  Everybody lives for somebody's glory.   Probably in your life no one has ever challenged you to decide whose glory that you're going to live for, so consequently guess whose glory you live for?

 

Living for your glory is too small a thing.  I don't care what you do and how much money you make and how cute your wife is and how cool your stuff is and how smart your kids are.  To become absorbed with you're glory makes you small. Ultimately it makes you insignificant because you weren't created for your glory.   You can never amass enough glory to fill you up, and when you become a glory hog you become less content, more unhappy, and more undesirable to be with.  You were made for something more, and you have been invited to something much bigger, grander and more glorious.

 

Champions, have a great week!-David Vining