Super Christian Status

By Donna McCrary –

This is the year! The right time for a clean slate, a fresh beginning, a “re-do” on all the failed attempts from last year at reaching my most desired accomplishment – Super Christian status.

Go ahead. Join me in my fist-pumping-face-smacking-pep-rally as I set my sights on this amazing accomplishment. I know I can do this! I have reviewed and updated my failed action items list from last year. I made it more realistic and added a few activities that will definitely secure my nomination for Super Christian status. One final review as the new year approaches:

Read through the Bible in a year
Get up before the rooster crows to spend thirty minutes praying for my needs, desires, the sick and dying
Attend a weekly small group on Sunday morning and Wednesday night
Attend worship on Sunday morning and evening
Attend a women’s conference mid-year for a pick me up
Volunteer for VBS, two mission trips, choir, and Ladies Night Coordinator
I will leave salvation tracts on the table for my waitress (this should confirm my nomination)

Super Christian Award you are all mine this year!!

It’s sad to admit, but this was me several years ago. As a Life Coach, I appreciate the value of setting goals and taking action. But for me, the Super Christian status became more valuable than the Most Valuable. I was putting more emphasis on the action items than on the One I was doing the action for. I was wrapped up in the mentality of checking it off the list.

Last year, when I was reviewing and preparing for my fist-pumping-face-smacking-pep-rally I realized how much focus I had placed on “religious activities.” I was becoming a modern-day Pharisee. I went through the emotions and actions of being a Christian but I didn’t have a relationship with Christ.

This realization gave me new direction. I put my goals and action items aside. Don’t get me wrong! I still attended worship, read my Bible, and prayed, but I didn’t check it off as a strategic action item when I finished. I simply enjoyed the moments spent with my Father! I discovered I didn’t need an action plan to reach Super Christian status, because now I deeply desire to experience the One that loves me and that alone drives all the necessary action steps.

PRAYER: “God, forgive me for making my goals and aspirations my god. Help me this year to spend time with You so I can experience Your love and friendship daily.”

BIBLE VERSE: “This is what the Lord says: The wise must not boast in his wisdom; the mighty must not boast in his might; the rich must not boast in his riches. But the one who boasts should boast in this, that he understands and knows ME- that I am the Lord, showing faithful love, justice, and righteousness on the earth, for I delight in these things. [This is] the Lords’ declaration.” (Jeremiah 9:23-24)

Signs of the End Times? Israel in the Promised Land

By Dianne E. Butts –

In December, we talked about the prophecies given and then fulfilled in the birth of Jesus. Today, many people are wondering about other prophecies and whether or not we are seeing them fulfilled right before our very eyes today. Could the things we see going on in our world today be fulfillment of “End Times” prophecies? This year, let’s take a look at some of the “end time” or “last days” prophecies given in the Bible and explore how they might be coming true right now.

From my experience, it’s hard to tell which is the majority: those who believe we are living in the last days or those who believe we are not. Often when the topic of end-times prophecy comes up, someone says they believe the Lord is coming back, but it might not be for hundreds or a thousand more years.

I don’t think so. I think it’s going to be soon. Very soon. In fact, I think it’s going to be soon enough that the generation alive right now will see it. Since you’re reading this—that means you!

Why do I believe it will be that soon? Mostly because of one Sign.

Let me ask you—if you had to choose one prophecy you think is the most revealing that we are nearing the End Times, what would it be? Jesus said many things would happen in Matthew 24 and elsewhere. One thing Jesus said was that this world would be worse than ever before: “For then there will be great distress, unequaled from the beginning of the world until now—and never to be equaled again” (Matthew 24:21). So are we there yet?

To tell the signs of the times, or where we are on God’s prophetic clock, we need a Sign that is specific.

So my choice for the most revealing Sign is that Israel is back in the Promised Land.

How long has it been since Israel was in the Promised Land and governing itself? This note is in the NIV Study Bible (1984), page 1319 (on the map): “Continued political rivalries in Judea brought the intervention of the Roman general Pompey in 63 B.C. This event signaled the end of Jewish political independence, except for periods of brief autonomy during the ill-fated revolts of the first and second Christian centuries.”

Israel has not been its own nation in the land God gave the Israelites since 63 B.C.! Until—do you know when? The answer has occurred within the lifetimes of many living among us today—the World War II generation.

God showed the prophet Ezekiel the valley of dry bones in Ezekiel 37. God asked the prophet, “Son of man, can these bones live?”

The prophet wisely answered, “O Sovereign, LORD, you alone know” (Ezekiel 37:3). Then God showed the dead bones being put back together and flesh being put back on them and them coming to life once again: “So I prophesied as he commanded me, and breath entered them; they came to life and stood up on their feet—a vast army. Then he said to me: ‘Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel’” (Ezekiel 37:10-11).

So again, do you know when Israel once again became a nation? Hint: It was very soon after the end of World War II, after Hitler tried but failed to annihilate God’s chosen people, the Jews.

Israel once again became a nation: May 14, 1948.

Now that’s specific!

This is one Sign that is absolutely unique to our time. No one can argue saying this Sign has not been fulfilled.

What do you think? Are we in, or nearing, the End Times?

Time-Saving Fitness Tips

By Cami Checketts –

As a new year dawns, it’s important to make goals to fit in time for fitness, but with all we have on our to-do lists we don’t want to waste time. Following are a few fitness trends that are a waste of time. Below each you will discover effective things you can do instead:

1. Lifting too quickly or with weights that are too light.

You’re not doing anything to increase your muscle strength if the weights are so light you can cruise through more than twelve reps or if you’re bouncing through your reps. It’s better to do six to eight reps with good form–very slow and controlled–rather than do forty reps with two-pound dumbbells. Not only are you wasting your time but you could injure yourself.

Women will not bulk up from lifting heavier weights. In fact, it’s been proven that heavier weights (I recommend beginning with ten pound dumbbells and working up as your strength improves) will increase metabolism, burn more calories during and after the workout, and improve the density and tone of a muscle much quicker than light weights and high reps.

2. Ineffective cardio

Any kind of movement is going to burn calories and improve your health–helping to prevent a myriad of diseases and boost your mood and energy. There is a lot of proof that people who wear pedometers and move more than 10,000 steps a day improve their health without any formal exercise.

But if you are trying to lose weight, you have to challenge yourself with speed, duration, and intensity. You also need to vary your cardio. Your body adapts quickly to the demands placed upon it. Cross-training is key to combating that. If you normally run, try swimming. If you bike, go to a kickboxing class. If you climb on the Elliptical machine every day, rent a yoga video for a change.
Interval workouts are a brilliant way to challenge yourself. Basically you warm up, then alternate a high intensity for thirty to ninety seconds with a moderate intensity for two-three minutes. Repeat the cycle four to seven times before cooling down. Intervals have been proven to help people lose up to five times more weight.

3. Inner and outer thigh exercises

The TV commercials for those special machines that reduce your thighs make me want to scream! There is virtually no muscle on your inner or outer thighs. It is physiologically impossible to spot reduce (burn off fat by working a certain part of your body). Therefore inner and outer thigh exercises do nothing but make your legs burn. Just because something hurts or burns does not mean it’s effective. Doing fifty outer thigh lifts in aerobics class will build up lactic acid and hurt, but it won’t do anything to slim your thighs. Concentrate on lifting on the major muscle groups to improve strength and increase metabolism.

4. Abdominal Machines

The abdomen is a stabilizer muscle. You use your abs to hold your mid-section steady throughout your day. Because you use your abs so often it is hard to overload them and increase strength. Most of the ab machines you see on television are a waste of time and money.

The most effective ab workout is crunches on an exercise ball or the plank. As you work your abs, make sure they are tucked in flat. Never strain and push past your ability to hold the abdomen tight. When I go to Pilates, I quite often find myself letting my abs protrude because I’m trying to hold a certain pose. It’s not worth it! Promise me you won’t get prideful like me. Keep those abs in.
Another cheap, easy, and effective thing you can do for your abs is suck in and stand up straight and tall. Remind yourself throughout the day: tighten abdomen, tilt pelvis, and throw shoulders back. Your body will become accustomed to holding you that way and you will look ten pounds lighter.

Effective exercise will maximize the time you spend in the gym making you healthier and giving you more time and energy to focus on the most important things: serving and loving those around us.

Oil For Our Lamps

By Cheri Cowell –

Did you know the Bible has a lot to say about procrastination? Like millions of people, as the year begins I set goals for the New Year. I must admit, however, I am bitten by the after Christmas blues, or as some might call them, the having difficulty getting back into the swing of things blues. I easily find ways to put things off, delay acting, and as Webster so harshly nails it on the head, I am negligent. Ouch! So, I decided to go to God’s Word to get a jump-start, or maybe a kick in my pants.

If you need one too, read the Bible verse for today.

In this parable, we get a clear picture of the results of consistent procrastination. It was customary on the wedding day for the bridegroom to go to the bride’s house for the ceremony. Then bride and groom, along with the processional of family and friends, would return to the groom’s house for a feast or banquet, which sometimes lasted a week.

Also of note, Jesus often referred to the gift of the Holy Spirit as oil. When I reread this parable with this information, I began to see how my procrastination was a result of leaning on my own abilities, gifts, and initiative. Instead, if I fill my lamp with His oil, and my spirit with The Spirit and lean on Him to lead my way, the procrastination will turn into productivity. What a great lesson to begin the New Year.

PRAYER: God, show me what You might want me to learn today about procrastination. Thank You for understanding my tendency to procrastinate. Help me to lean more upon You and less upon my own abilities, gifts, and initiative and more on Your Holy Spirit.

BIBLE VERSE: “Then the kingdom of heaven will be comparable to ten virgins, who took their lamps and went out to meet the bridegroom. Five of them were foolish, and five were prudent. For when the foolish took their lamps, they took no oil with them, but the prudent took oil in flasks along with their lamps” (Matthew 25:1-5 read through 13 for whole parable. NASB).

Blurring the Ancient Boundaries

By DiAne Gates –

Mother often recited, “I don’t build fences to keep you in. I build fences to keep bad stuff out.” But it sure felt like I was being detained.

Until I grew up and had my own children.

God sets boundaries for His kids too. Not to hold us captive, but to keep us safe. He’s the great protector, not the cosmic killjoy.

In the late ‘70’s, my kids were third and sixth graders in a public school that became the battleground to guerrilla warfare waged against children in the classroom.

Comments slipped from their mouths, and at first we responded, “They’re just kids.”

One afternoon our third grader retorted, “My teacher says I don’t have to mind you. You’re old. I can do what I feel like doing.”

What teacher in their right mind would tell that to a child? We instructed our daughter, “Your teacher wouldn’t say that. You need to be quiet and listen.”

But other parents voiced the same concerns when their kiddos came home with the same rhetoric. The teacher really taught these lies and the kids acted on her instruction.

We discovered the guidance counselor held classes with every kid, in all grades, each week. The School Board and school allowed this counselor to use a book not approved by the State Text Book Committee. A book not even on the list of books from which they could choose.

We tracked the publication to another school, borrowed it, and called a meeting for the parents of our elementary school. A reporter from a local newspaper, met with us and we previewed the book, DoSo The Dolphin, taught at the elementary school. The middle school taught Total Affective Behavior.

DoSo the Dolphin taught you could do anything you wanted if you had a good reason for doing it. One example in the book was this. “Little Johnny told a lie. But Little Johnny had a very good reason for telling this lie. What would you do if you were Little Johnny?” This lesson encouraged children not to go to their parents for answers, but to come to their “Magic Circle,” group, where they would find understanding. This book was used in grades 1 through 5.

Middle school kids were exposed to survival games—taught to make life and death decisions based on a person’s worth to society. This teaching became known as Situation Ethics. The situation you’re in determines the ethics you use.

The question remains: Is God’s Word truth? Is there absolute truth? Satan asked Eve in the garden, “Did God really say that?” And the blurring continues since that day in the garden.

Fast forward to 2012. We are dealing with high school shootings, drugs, gangs in schools, teen pregnancies, abortions, alarming STD rates, and an overcrowded prison system. We have raised a generation of adults who were taught in schools, “If it feels good, do it.” How can we expect them to have a moral or spiritual compass?

This brainwashed generation is raising children of their own with few, if any, boundaries. Where do we go from here? Are parents and grandparents failing our children and grandchildren in this society? Are we teaching them the Word of God?

God constructed the fence of His Statutes and Ordinances for His children, but His rebellious kids catapult over those walls of protection and find themselves in places they thought would bring freedom and joy, but instead bring destruction.

Were you a student in the classroom during this deceptive teaching or do you know people who were? How did it affect you? Please join the conversation.

“Arise, cry aloud in the night at the beginning of the night watches; Pour out your heart like water before the presence of the Lord; Lift up your hands to Him for the life of your little ones. . .” (Lamentations 2:19 NAS).

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