In my office, I am daily bombarded with the painful reality of living in a fallen world. The topics that are discussed range from singleness to marital infidelity to miscarriage to rebellious teens. The statement that is often made is how "this" (whatever this is) does not feel good, or the question that is asked is how is "this" good? I think as Christians, especially American Christians, we have often let our "comfort culture" shape our view of the word good versus allowing the Lord to define good.
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"But for me it is good to be near God; I have made the Lord my refuge..." (v.28) The experts say that there are only three things to consider when buying a piece of property; location, location, location. The same could be said about life. Life is about about location, location, location, and when you understand this you live in a radically different way. Confused? Let me point you to four ways in which location matters.
I consider myself a biblical counselor. Some may disagree after reading this blog…but I am willing to stand corrected and learn. I have for some time opposed integration in counseling, and in a very real sense I still do. However, I have far too often made rash judgments about institutions and persons who’s counseling has been deemed integrated in their approach without looking more deeply into what exactly that means in a particular case. How you define the term integration seems to make all the difference as to whether it is theological error or good practice.
<h2 style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; font-weight: normal; font-size: 2em; font-family: PFDinTextCompPro-Regular; vertical-align: baseline; color: rgb(66, 60, 46); line-height: 1.3em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> <span style="color: rgb(79, 79, 79); font-family: Arial; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px;">It doesn’t take long to figure out that we live in an angry world. Read the headlines on any given day and you see anger on display in politics, movies, TV shows, and sports. Spend any amount of time in any family and you’ll see anger expressed almost daily. When a day goes by without conflict, it’s a miracle of God. </span>
<p> I was speaking at a major Christian University about building healthy relationships recently and a student approached me with a problem. He said, “You teach mutuality and reciprocity are important components in </p>
<p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 18px; font-size: 16px; line-height: 21px; font-family: franklin-gothic-urw-n4, franklin-gothic-urw, sans-serif; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); color: rgb(60, 60, 60) !important;"> We're in the middle of looking at three mentalities that are essential to creating and sustaining a healthy relational lifestyle. Last week we discussed what it meant to live in our relationships with<a href="http://paultripp.com/wednesdays-word/posts/relationships-a-harvest-mentality" style="color: rgb(110, 176, 186); cursor: pointer; -webkit-transition: color 0.15s ease-in-out; transition: color 0.15s ease-in-out;">A Harvest Mentality.</a></p> <p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 18px; font-size: 16px; line-height: 21px; font-family: franklin-gothic-urw-n4, franklin-gothic-urw, sans-serif; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); color: rgb(60, 60, 60) !important;"> Here's the second mentality:</p> <h2 style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 12px; font-family: tablet-gothic-compressed-n7, tablet-gothic-compressed, sans-serif; color: rgb(110, 176, 186); text-transform: uppercase; line-height: 21px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> <strong>2) YOU MUST LIVE IN YOUR RELATIONSHIPS WITH AN INVESTMENT MENTALITY:</strong></h2> <p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 18px; font-size: 16px; line-height: 21px; font-family: franklin-gothic-urw-n4, franklin-gothic-urw, sans-serif; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); color: rgb(60, 60, 60) !important;"> We're all treasure hunters. We all live to gain, maintain, keep, and enjoy things that are valuable to us. Our behavior in any given situation of life is our attempt to get what is valuable to us out of that situation. There are things in your life to which you have assigned importance, and once you have, you are no longer willing to live without them (these principles are laid out in Matthew 6:19–33).</p>
In Antioch the disciples were first called Christians. They were known as Christ-people. This is not the only term used in the New Testament.
God’s Word constantly shatters the illusion that this world holds any promise of making His people a happy and contented flock. Were that the case, I would be, according to “the traditions of men” a woman woebegone. I have never married, I have no children, gravity has taken an early toll on my frame because of cancer and yes, I have three cats. So why am I so happy and as content? By God’s sweet dispensation of grace toward me, I have learned a secret.
I live in Southern California and now that it’s summer, a familiar problem has returned. The problem is immodesty and now that the temperature is rising, the problem is becoming more and more obvious…again. But summer or not, modesty has been a topic of concern for me during my whole life. For instance, back in the days when I was in Catholic school, modesty was demanded.
A number of years ago I participated in a group building activity. The mission: to drop an egg from the highest point of a ladder onto a tile floor without the egg breaking. To that end we were given a limited variety of unlikely materials: (Popsicle sticks, rubber bands, strips of tape, band-aids, drinking straws, string, etc. and asked to create a vessel around an egg that would ensure the success of the mission… the safety of the egg in a precarious position).