David Murray - Leadership for Servants
Tag Archive - Positive

The Most Important Question in Marriage

May 28, 2013 • By David Murray • 11 Comments

The main question most people ask in marriage relationships today is, “What can I get out of it?” Especially, “What sex can I get out of it?”

And when the investment of time, money, emotion, and sexual energy does not pay off as expected?

Separation.

And the search for a better return from someone else. Someone else who’ll fit into my life better. Someone else who won’t take so much of my time and money. Someone else who will fill me rather than drain me.

But if everyone’s trying to get more than they give, no one’s going to be happy and marriages are doomed to premature and painful endings.

In contrast, the Bible says that the most important question in marriage is not, “What can I get?” but “What can I give?”

Blessed Giving

And, strangely, when each party is focused more on giving than getting, the result is more getting for both parties. In marriage also it really is “more blessed to give than to receive.”

In Ephesians 5, the Apostle Paul presents Jesus as the ultimate model of this self-giving love. Because He loved us, He sacrificially gave Himself for us. Because He loved us, He sacrificially submitted to His Father’s will. And what a union such self-giving created! And what a pattern for our marriages!

Paul’s basic argument in this passage is that the more we give of ourselves in the service of our husband or wife, the more union, intimacy, satisfaction, and fulfillment we will discover and enjoy in our marriages. Let the “What can I give?” question drown out and drive out the “What can I get?” question in every situation of life:

  • When you argue: What can I give up to resolve this?
  • When you’ve hurt one another: What apology can I give to heal this?
  • When on vacation: What can I give to make his vacation better?
  • When in bed: What can I give to enhance his/her enjoyment of physical intimacy?
  • When budgeting: What can I give up this month to give her more spending money?
  • When talking: How can I give her more of a listening ear?
  • When leading: How can I serve her better in my leadership?
  • When submitting: How can I give him more respect when I disagree with his decisions?
  • When filling free time: How can I give him most pleasure today?
  • When offended: How can I give him the benefit of the doubt?
  • When betrayed: How can I give him grace?
  • When you have no feelings of love: How can I do loving actions?
  • When she is not as attractive: How can I love her as the Lord loved the church?
  • When you see his ugly side: How can I help him become more beautiful?
  • When he’s depressed: How can I give him encouragement?
  • When she’s lost sleep: How can I give her rest?

Give, Give, Give 

Give your mind, your heart, your eyes, your hands, your body, your money. Give financially, emotionally, physically, intellectually, sexually, and spiritually. Give yourself, your whole self, away. And if we believe the Bible rather than our instincts and our culture, we will be more blessed in that giving than in all the getting we can imagine (Acts 20:35).

The great aim of all this marital giving is that eventually we each give so much of self away, that each has all of the other, and the two become one; we lose so much independence, and become so inter-dependent that we become “one flesh” in every way.

Thankful People are Happy People

May 21, 2013 • By David Murray • 5 Comments

Research shows that gratitude is a powerful force for creating positive changes in individuals, families, and organizations. In fact, according to Sonja Lyubomirsky, a research professor of psychology, “The expression of gratitude is a kind of metastrategy for achieving happiness.” Some of the more detailed findings, published in books like The Happiness Advantage, Flourish, and Optimal Functioning, are:

  • Consistently grateful people are more energetic, emotionally intelligent, forgiving, and less likely to be depressed, anxious, or lonely.
  • When researchers pick random volunteers and train them to be more grateful over a period of a few weeks, they become happier and more optimistic, feel more socially connected, enjoy better quality sleep, and even experience fewer headaches than control groups.
  • By noticing more kindness you’ll experience more of it in your life. Counting kindness interventions involve taking daily tallies (mental or physical) of kind acts committed and witnessed, and have been shown to increase people’s levels of positivity.
  • Gratitude encourages moral behavior and helps people cope with stress, trauma, and adversity.
  • It also inhibits negative comparisons with others and pushes out and replaces negative emotions.
  • When we express our gratitude to others, we strengthen our relationship with them.
  • Studies show that consistently grateful people are happier and more satisfied with their lives
  • Thankful people feel more physically healthy and spend more time exercising.

In The Happiness Project, the best-selling biographical experiment in positive psychology, Gretchen Rubin explains the benefits of increased thankfulness in her own life:

Gratitude brings freedom from envy, because when you’re grateful for what you have, you’re not consumed with wanting something different or something more. That, in turn, makes it easier to live within your means and also to be generous to others. Gratitude fosters forbearance – it’s harder to feel disappointed with someone when you’re feeling grateful toward him or her. Gratitude also connects you to the natural world, because one of the easiest things to feel grateful for is the beauty of nature.

Increasing Gratitude

We can increase gratitude in our lives by intensifying the feeling of it for each positive event, by increasing the frequency of it throughout the day, by widening the number of things we’re grateful for, and by expressing gratitude to more people. Some positive psychologists, like Jessica Colman, also encourage the practice of “savoring” which has three phases:

  • Anticipation: Generating positive feelings before an event occurs.
  • Present enjoyment: Generating positive feelings in the present by intensifying or prolonging them through thoughts and behaviors.
  • Reminiscence: Generating positive feelings by looking back on an event in a way that re-kindles positive emotion.

In Flourish, Martin Seligman identified four kinds of savoring:

  • Basking: Reveling in or making the most of praise or congratulations.
  • Thanksgiving: Experiencing or expressing gratitude.
  • Marveling: Being filled with wonder, astonishment, or awe.
  • Luxuriating: Delighting in the experience of the senses.

Some more practical activities for increasing gratitude are explained in Optimal Functioning:

  • Gratitude Journal: Write down what you are grateful for each day, and describe in detail why each good thing happened. This draws the attention to the precursors of good events and helps people become aware of more things to be grateful for, deepening the experience.
  • Gratitude Essay or Letter: Write an essay about, or a letter to someone to whom you feel grateful. Explain why you feel grateful in detail. If you write a letter it is not necessary to deliver it, but delivering it can produce even more positive emotion for the writer and the receiver.
  • Gratitude Partner: Plan to practice gratitude regularly with a partner by sharing good news and discussing things you feel grateful for. Respond actively and constructively when your partner shares, feeling the joy and gratitude with them when they share their blessings.
  • Meditate on the Feeling of Gratitude: Sit in a quiet place to meditate, call to mind things you feel grateful for, savor the feeling of gratitude, and let it impact your whole body.
  • Express Gratitude Directly: Make a habit of thanking people authentically for the things they do for you and the impact they have on your life.

More blessed to give than to receive

As far as I know, none of these positive psychology experts have Christian faith. And yet God is using them not only to confirm the Bible’s teaching about giving (of thanks) making us happier than receiving (Acts 20:35), but also to work out the practical details of how to increase gratitude in our lives for everyone’s benefit.

It’s the kind of thing that makes us wonder how unbelievers sometimes seem to have more understanding of biblical principles than Christians! But the Apostle Paul helps us make sense of this. He says that when unbelievers, who do not have the law, by nature do the things in the law, they show the work of the law written in their hearts (Rom. 2:14-15).

How Technology Made me a Better Christian

May 3, 2013 • By David Murray • 17 Comments

There’s way too much Christian negativity surrounding technology. All we seem to think and read about are the dangers and difficulties of the digital revolution.

But how about some balance? How about recognizing and appreciating the amazing technological gifts that God has blessed our generation with?

I recently linked to How Technology Made me a Better Mom, and I thought, “Why don’t Christians write pieces like this?” Then, “Why don’t I write a piece like this?” So here goes with “How technology made me a better Christian.”

Affordable resources
I would not have half the books I have without the advent of Logos, Ages Software, eBooks, Kindle Daily Deals, etc. How impoverished my life and ministry would be without these resources! Then add all the blogs, websites, online sermons and videos, podcasts, and it’s almost too much of a good thing. Where do you start? Enter reliable online curators like Tim Challies and Justin Taylor to help us find the best treasure.

Searchable books
When I began my ministry in the mid-nineties, I started an elaborate and time-intensive index card reference system for everything I read in books, magazines, journals, etc. Yet even that often failed me as I stood in front of my tiny library and wondered, “Where did I read that quote? Which book deals with this verse or doctrine?” Now I can search Logos, my Kindle, Evernote, Dropbox, etc. and find them with a few clicks. This has not only saved me oodles of time, but has enriched my life and ministry immeasurably.

Economy and clarity of words
I got through Glasgow University and my first year of Seminary without a computer. I wasn’t a Luddite. It’s just that personal computers were still quite rare (and expensive). My first computer was a Packard Bell and it had a 200mb hard-drive! Yet even that made a huge different to the sermons I was beginning to preach. I still have the ten or so handwritten sermon notes of my first efforts. I remember there were times when I wanted to cut, edit, or re-arrange a section and yet just didn’t have the time to write everything else out again. My PC’s cut-and-paste made me a better preacher by helping me compress, clarify, and simplify my language. I so much wish John Owen had lived in our day.

Current comment
Until the advent of the Internet, if there was some moral crisis or worrying spiritual development in the church or nation, it would take a month or two for Christian periodicals to cover it and publish on it with comment and guidance. By then, the issue was often long gone and the debate had passed. Now we have the best minds and writers in Christendom able to comment and guide us through extremely treacherous moral and spiritual times and trends, and to do so virtually in real time!

Christian fellowship
Yes, I believe Christian fellowship has increased rather than decreased with the advent of the Internet. Through blogs and websites, “ordinary” Christians are sharing their faith and their spiritual experiences in ways that bless and encourage hundreds and sometimes thousands of other Christians – and non-Christians too. So much that would have been kept private and untold is now public and shared. Isolated Christians, Christian seniors, Christians with special needs, Christian homemakers, etc., have access to other Christians in unprecedented ways. And it’s not all digital. Most of my online friendships have developed into face-to-face friendships. Christians find it easier to open up and share in their local churches too because they’ve been “practicing” online.

Christian diversity
One of the richest aspects of online life is learning about other Christians from other backgrounds and cultures. Pre-Internet I might have seen them from a distance, and judged adversely on the basis of outward appearance. But as I read their blogs, listen to their sermons, and interact with them on Twitter and Facebook, etc., I hear and see their hearts for Christ and I’m better able to see past outward differences, love them, and be immeasurably enriched by them and their witness.

Outreach and Mission
It’s incredible how easy and inexpensive it now is to produce ministry resources and send them around the world at the click of a mouse. Churches and seminaries in third world countries are better equipped and educated than they’ve ever been. Classes and lectures are beamed into deserts, slums, and jungles. Missionaries connect with their families and churches at home via Skype. The Christian message is reaching countries and places no Christian can.

Usability of biblical languages
Logos, Bibleworks, NET Bible, etc., have helped me to continue, maintain, and improve my biblical languages. Like most pastors, when I came out of Seminary, my Greek and Hebrew began to slip and fade. However, when I discovered Logos in the late nineties, with easy-to-use parsing guides, word study tools, lexicons, etc., my biblical languages began to resume an important place in my sermon preparation. Without the time-saving digital tools, I know I wouldn’t have had the time to incorporate them into my weekly study.

Digital sanctification
This list is getting way too long already, and it could go on even longer, but let me wrap up by emphasizing that all these things and many more have made you and me better Christians. The digital revolution has increased our theological knowledge, our cultural engagement, our ministry reach and effectiveness, our evangelism and apologetics, our love for one another, and our holiness.

And who cannot worship God more when they sit down every day with an Apple!

In what ways has technology made you a better Christian?

Optimism and Faith in a POW Camp

Apr 22, 2013 • By David Murray • 2 Comments

Who has the worst chance of surviving a prisoner of war camp?

An optimist!

According to General Stockdale, who was held captive for eight years during the Vietnam War and tortured 22 times before finally making it home, it was mainly optimists who did not make it out alive.

He explains: “They were the ones who said, ‘We’re going to be out by Christmas.’ And Christmas would come, and Christmas would go. Then they’d say, ‘We’re going to be out by Easter.’ And Easter would come, and Easter would go. And then Thanksgiving, and then it would be Christmas again. And they died of a broken heart.”

In contrast to false optimism, Stockdale attributes his survival to realistic faith: “I never lost faith in the end of the story, I never doubted not only that I would get out, but also that I would prevail in the end and turn the experience into the defining event of my life, which, in retrospect, I would not trade.” He concluded: “You must never confuse faith that you will prevail in the end–which you can never afford to lose–with the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be.”

Buffer co-founder Leo Widrich tells this story on the Fastcompany website as an object lesson in how to build a business, summing it all up with what he called: The Stockdale Paradox – Faith trumps optimism.

Widrich applies the Stockdale Paradox by arguing that businesses should abandon the mirage of silver bullets, the false hope that “just one more thing, tweak, etc., is going to turn everything around.” Instead, they should work hard, keep faith in their product, and persevere to see gradual growth and success.

But we can apply this principle to our spiritual lives and ministries too. Many Christians and churches seem to entertain unending optimism in “the next big thing” to make the “big breakthrough” in their lives and churches. The consequences are increasing numbers of disillusioned Christians and churches, some of whom are dying from broken hearts.

If we want to avoid this, let’s abandon all optimism that the next big thing, ministry, personality, sermon, technique, film, strategy, etc., will fix us or the church. Such “silver bullets” distract us from reality and have a habit of blowing up in our faces.

Instead let’s confront the brutal reality of our lives, our families, our churches, and our society. But, at the same time, let’s also keep steady faith in the Word of God, especially its sure promises of personal perseverance and the ultimate triumph of faith and of the Church of Christ.

Optimism is not faith. But faith is optimistic.

An alternative to “Meh”

Apr 11, 2013 • By David Murray • 3 Comments

God praises people. Far-from-perfect people. Sinful people. Amazing isn’t it? There may be bad things in their past, their present or their future, and yet God praises them and inspired the biblical authors to record that praise.

  • Noah: “You are righteous before me in this generation.”
  • Job: “There is none like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, one who fears God and shuns evil?”
  • Roman Centurion: “I have not found such great faith, not even in Israel!”
  • Nathaniel: “Behold, an Israelite indeed, in whom is no deceit!”
  • Canaanite woman: “O woman, great is your faith!”

Part of being perfect as our Father in heaven is perfect, is imitating Him in praising and affirming others, especially when they share good news with us. The popular writers in the Positive Psychology movement have identified four different kinds of response to someone who shares good news with us:

  • Active Constructive: We feel the joy of the person sharing the news and respond enthusiastically by asking for more details and by helping them savor the news. Example: “That’s wonderful news. I’m so happy for you! Tell me more about it”
  • Passive Constructive: The response is supportive but quiet and understated rather than excited and interested: Example: “That’s nice dear.”
  • Active Destructive: Here the responder demeans the person or quashes the news by making critical, negative, or pessimistic remarks about the information that was shared.” Example: “That’s never going to work out. It’ll probably add a lot of stress in your life.”
  • Passive Destructive: Ignores the news and fails to acknowledge the feelings of the person. Example: “So anyway…Guess what happened to me at work today.”

God is an active constructive responder! And so should we be. And not only because it helps us imitate and represent God to others, but because it will do us good too.

Research shows that people who rate their partners as active and constructive responders feel more intimacy and trust, are more satisfied with the relationship, report fewer conflicts, and engage in more fun and relaxing activities together This is because active constructive responding makes people feel validated, understood, and cared for (Jessica Colman, Optimal Functioning)

So next time you’re tempted to “Meh” someone, or worse, remember: “A generous person will prosper; whoever refreshes others will be refreshed” (Proverbs 11:25).

Blood Work

Apr 9, 2013 • By David Murray • 1 Comment

I’ve been luxuriating in the precious blood of Christ while reading Anthony Carter’s wonderful new book on the atonement, Blood Work. Come and join me, via my favorite quotes:

  • Even though my blood could potentially save the temporal life of one, how many more can be saved unto eternal life by the precious blood of Jesus?
  • Life is truly in the blood. Temporally it is in the blood running through our veins. Eternally it is in the sin-breaking, guilt removing, incomparable, inestimably valuable blood of Jesus Christ.
  • Christianity is a bloody religion not because of the blood shed by people in wars and inquisitions, but because of the blood shed by Jesus Christ.
  • At the very heart of our Christian faith is a precious red substance; the blood of our Lord Jesus Christ (R Phillips)
  • If the history of redemption is a story told in pictures, the blood of Christ is the paint with which that story is portrayed.
  • The shedding of his blood was the highest and most excellent part of his obedience (Phil. 2:8)(Stephen Charnock)
  • The blood of the Old Testament spoke, but Christ’s blood speaks better. In speaking, it also satisfies.
  • The blood of Christ is significant, not for the blood itself, but for what it represents – the perfect, sinless, life of Christ poured out in death for us.
  • The redeemed do not receive a blood transfusion from God. We receive a life transfusion – He death for our death, his life for our life.
  • Christ bought us and therefore owns us. He did not purchase His people on credit He paid in full. We are his.
  •  Jesus will not return or exchange what he has bought.
  • The only currency that is of value in heaven and throughout eternity is the blood of Chist.
  • Sin is not just breaking the rules., it’s making one’s own rules.
  • God has more right to be angry at the sin of the world than we have at a thousand terrorists.
  • The Gospel in five words: Christ died for the ungodly.
  • Jesus’ blood pleads for us. He is the Advocate and His blood is the plea.
  • The Trinity is a love triangle. But unlike the love triangles we know, this one works, bringing joy and delight to all.
  • Apart from Christ, life is nothing more than a march from the womb to the tomb.
  • Selfish Christian? There is no self at the cross, only Jesus. Stingy Christian? The cross is the greatest motivation for giving there ever could be. Proud Christian? The ground at the foot of the cross is the humblest in the history of the world. Racist Christian? At the cross there is no Jew or Gentile, black or white, Arab or Asian.
  • Racial and ethnic bloodlines are not omnipotent. The blood of Christ is.
  • The blood of Christ says not only that we can get along with each other; more important, it says that we can get along with God.
  • Pilate proposed to wash the blood of Christ away from himself, while Paul knew himself to be washed in the blood of Christ.
  • Sin is more destructive than an atomic bomb; more menacing than a terrorist plot; more ruinous than a plague of locusts; more devastating that ten tsunamis; and more horrible and scary than a thousand bogeymen.
  • “Had I the guilt of all the world, He’s able to forgive.”

Bad news sells better than good news

Apr 5, 2013 • By David Murray • 4 Comments

The good news about bad news is that there is not nearly as much of it as you might think. The bad news about good news is that good news doesn’t tend to sell. Dr. Bradley Wright explains this paradox in Upside: Surprising Good News about the State of our World

The media sells negative worldviews. It’s not that reporters, writers, and editors are pessimistic people; rather, they have a strong incentive to tell us about the fearful, scary, and dangerous happenings in our world. The media is a business, and it succeeds by attracting viewers and readers. With hundreds of television channels and even more online news sources, how can they do this? One way is to offer something that is truly frightening. If watching a story can save us from some imminent danger, then maybe we’ll stop channel surfing long enough to watch it. If reading a report can protect us from a health scare, maybe we’ll pick the magazine off the rack. Sensationalism and fear sells—this is a fact of life that won’t change anytime soon (36).

Wright proceeds to highlight how this also motivates the media to find bad news even in the good news:

If life expectancy decreases, people are dying younger. If it increases, it strains the social security system. An unpreventable disease harms people; a preventable disease means disparities in access to medical treatment. High birthrates cause overcrowding; low birthrates cause school closings and lowered future tax revenues (38).

Many activist and advocacy groups like Greenpeace also have a vested interest in selecting and emphasizing the negative. If the world is not getting worse, who’s going to volunteer or donate to make it better?

But in many ways our world is getting better.

  • People living in the middle class in the U.S. live better than 99.4% of all human beings who have ever existed
  • Americans are healthier and live longer than ever before
  • Literacy rates are up and crime is down
  • Family income is up and the cost of living is down
  • Air and water quality is up and deforestation is slowing down (201, 204-5).

But what about the rest of the world? It’s a basket case, isn’t it? Not at all.

 The United Nation’s Human Development Index is based on three measures: life expectancy, education, and income….The United Nations has collected data on 115 countries from 1990 to 2007, and would you like to guess how many of them had improved over this time period? If you guessed 109, you are absolutely right (207-8)

Wright assembles hundreds of facts and statistics to support his persuasive thesis that although there are still a few significant areas where things are getting worse rather than better, that’s the exception rather than the rule, and concludes:

Two thousand years ago, a book whose core was euaggelion—good news—began to be widely read. We of all people should be able to recognize and celebrate and express gratitude wherever we find it. For all good news is God’s good news, and to ignore it, hide it, minimize it, or distort it is neither mentally healthy nor spiritually sound.

Buy Upside and start to implement Philippians 4:8.

SPAM: Stop Positive Affirming Messages?

Apr 4, 2013 • By David Murray • 6 Comments

Scientists estimate that for every hundred pieces of information that enters our brain, ninety nine end up in our SPAM folder. We remember only one thing out of every hundred. And that’s a good thing. As many autistic people will tell you, if you don’t have a good SPAM filter, you can be overwhelmed with useless data.

The problem is that many of us have SPAM filters that are fantastic at filtering out the positive and letting in only the negative things of life. That’s partly because our education, political, and business culture rewards negativity experts, those who can pick out a single negative in a sea of positives.

We ask our children, “What’s wrong with this picture?” We set class assignments: “Critique this passage/viewpoint.” We mark mistakes with red ink but don’t waste blue ink on the correct answers. We scan our gardens for weeds. We admire debaters and politicians who can puncture holes in their opponents’ arguments. We promote lawyers who can detect a loophole from a hundred miles away. We love journalistic exposes. We are drawn to “watchblogs” and discernment ministries. We honor theologians who can destroy a heretic with devastating put-downs.

Grim one-sided input
All this programs our SPAM filter to scan life for negatives, problems, difficulties, lies, evil, etc. With such a grim input of one-sided data, is it any wonder that our emotions are so messed up? Harvard Professor of Positive Psychology Shawn Achor says:

Constantly scanning the world for the negative comes with a great cost. It undercuts our creativity, raises our stress levels, and lowers our motivation and ability to accomplish goals (The Happiness Advantage, 91).

Achor saw this problem especially clearly when the global tax-accounting firm KPMG commissioned him to help their tax auditors and managers become happier. How had these successful professionals become so miserable?

Many of them had to spend 8 to 14 hours a day scanning tax forms for errors, and as they did, their brains were becoming wired to look for mistakes. This made them very good at their jobs, but they were getting so expert at seeing errors and potential pitfalls that this habit started to spill over into other areas of their lives…undermining their relationships at work and at home. In performance reviews, they noticed only the faults of their team members, never the strengths. When they went home to their families, they noticed only the C’s on their kids’ report cards, never the A’s. When they ate at restaurants, they could only notice that the potatoes were underdone—never that the steak was cooked perfectly (91-92).

You don’t need to be an accountant to have such a SPAM filter!  As we saw previously though, we can retrain our brains and renew our minds. Or, to put it another way, we can re-program our SPAM filter. We can train ourselves to Scan for Positive and AffirmingMessages in every situation.

Positive differences
Although science and scripture agree on the possibility of change through the daily repetition of lots of little positives, they do differ in some significant respects about the details of how to effect this. Shawn Achor proposes more meditation, more gratitude, more active friendships, more gifts, more humor, more funny videos, etc.

As Christians, we’d happily go along with most of these common grace insights. However, we’d differ in the detailed implementation of them. Our meditation would be focused on encouraging portions of Scripture. Our gratitude would be directed first to God. Our most treasured friendships would be found in our local church and built upon our common love for our Savior. Our gifts would be given in the name of Christ and first of all to the cause of Christ. Our humor would be sanctified humor, stripped of anything offensive to God and hurtful to others, etc.

Negative differences
We would also differ in the way we process negative events like suffering and sadness. We want to face these painful experiences head on without denying or diminishing them. In addition to seeing them as opportunities to grow in character, we also want to use them to humble us, to sober us up, to make us examine our lives, to loosen us from this world, to drive us to the promises of God, and to make us long for the world to come.

The Christian SPAM filter is not only scanning for positive and affirming messages. It’s also able to take the worst trojans and viruses and by God’s grace to use even them for personal growth and God’s glory.

Your brain is plastic (and that’s good news)

Apr 1, 2013 • By David Murray • 6 Comments

For those of us who are temperamentally and instinctively on the more melancholic side of things, there’s good news. You can change your brain to think more positively and feel more cheerfully.

Until the 1970’s, most scientists believed that our brain structure and emotional makeup was primarily genetic and more or less set in stone, especially after teenage years. More recent research has demonstrated that we can actually change our brain structures and connections, improving our overall mood in the process.

A pill or surgery?
So how do we change our brains? Is there a pill, an operation, or a one-off intervention? No, we retrain our brains by multiple little daily decisions. That’s good news – and bad news.

It’s good news because it means we don’t need to do anything dramatic, expensive, or invasive.

The bad news is that it involves effort – disciplined and determined effort to increase the number of positive experiences in our everyday lives. These multiple, little, daily positives not only give us a quick squirt of happy emotions and improved performance but, as they become a habit, they raise our baseline happiness. Scientists call this neuroplasticity – yes, your brain is plastic and that’s actually a good thing – to convey how adaptable, flexible, and elastic our brains are.

New Pathways
Let me take you into the forest to explain. My kids love to cycle through the paths in the woods that back on to our yard. But every Spring the forest fights back and grows over the pathways. For a few weeks the kids slow right down, pushing away the leaves and branches that hang in the wrong place. They run over the fresh undergrowth rather gingerly, not wanting to take a heavy fall. But as the days and weeks pass, the branches and undergrowth submit to the repeated assaults and clear the way for our would-be X-games contestants to fly through the forest with the greatest of ease.

Something similar happens in our brains. We create electrical and chemical pathways with our thoughts. As we think our way down these pathways we strengthen the brain connections, As somebody put it, “cells that fire together, wire together.”  The more we travel these mental paths, the faster and easier these paths become, so that eventually our thoughts and resultant action feels automatic.  Harvard psychology professor and bestselling author, Shawn Achor, illustrates:

Just think of how you learned how to type at your computer. With practice it got easier as the pathways got more frequently used and the connections got stronger and faster. So much so that you can now type almost without thinking. Your thoughts and actions have re-shaped your brain roads. Through repetition, a good habit has become engrained and cemented in your brain structures and processes.

One of the most dramatic examples of this is a study of London cab drivers’ brains that showed they “had significantly larger hippocampi, the brain structure devoted to spatial memory, than the average person’s” [The Happiness Advantage, 28].

Renew your mind
I’m hugely encouraged by how this science confirms and explains Scripture. Through the Apostle Paul, God calls us to “be transformed by the renewing of your mind” (Rom .12:2). Both science and Scripture agree, we can change our brains by retraining them, we can renew our minds, and thereby be transformed.

Although science and Scripture disagree, to some extent, in the details of how this takes place, this “plastic brain” or “mind renewal” possibility opens up tremendous opportunities for personal change, growth, and development. And for Christians, who have the additional resources of the Holy Spirit and Scripture, the potential for transformation is hugely multiplied.

A New Recipe for Happiness

Mar 20, 2013 • By David Murray • 1 Comment

The most popular happiness recipe in the world is: SUCCESS FIRST, HAPPINESS SECOND.

Millions work themselves to the bone every day because they believe hard work will bake the cake of success that they will then be able to feast on with joy. So how’s that working out?

  • In 2010, only 45 percent of workers surveyed were happy at their jobs, the lowest in 22 years of polling.
  • Depression rates today are ten times higher than they were in 1960.
  • Every year the age threshold of unhappiness sinks lower across the nation.
  • Fifty years ago, the mean onset age of depression was 29.5 years old. Today, it is almost exactly half that: 14.5 years old.

There’s no less success; but there’s much less happiness. Why? Have we got the recipe wrong? Are we using the wrong ingredients? Or are we putting them in the wrong order?

The ingredients are right but we’ve got them in the wrong order. So says, Shawn Achor, Harvard Psychology Professor and bestselling author of The Happiness Advantage.

Happiness first, Success second
Achor argues that happiness is the pre-requisite to success, that optimism fuels performance and achievement, that our brains are “hardwired to perform at their best not when they are negative or even neutral, but when they are positive” [The Happiness Advantage, 15]. Waiting to be happy limits our brain’s potential for success, whereas cultivating positive brains makes us more motivated, efficient, resilient, creative, and productive, which drives performance upward. Some of his evidence includes:

  • Doctors put in a positive mood (with the promise of candy!) before making a diagnosis show almost three times more intelligence and creativity than doctors in a neutral state, and they make accurate diagnoses 19 percent faster.
  • Optimistic salespeople outsell their pessimistic counterparts by 56 percent.
  • Students primed to feel happy before taking math achievement tests far outperform their neutral peers.
  • Of 272 employees, those who were happier at the beginning of their employment ended up receiving better evaluations and higher pay later on.
  • A person’s happiness as a college freshman predicted how high their income was nineteen years later, regardless of their initial level of wealth.
  • Nuns whose journal entries had more overtly joyful content lived nearly ten years longer than the nuns whose entries were more negative or neutral.
  • Unhappy employees take more sick days, staying home an average of 1.25 more days per month, or 15 extra sick days a year.
  • Happiness functions as the cause, not just the result, of good health.
  • When positive emotions flood our brains with dopamine and serotonin, cognitive functions such as concentration, analysis, creativity, problem-solving, and memory are heightened.
  • Students who were told to think about the happiest day of their lives right before taking a standardized math test outperformed their peers
  • People who expressed more positive emotions while negotiating business deals did so more efficiently and successfully than those who were more neutral or negative
  • Happy people recover from stressful events faster
  • Students  who viewed attending Harvard as a privilege shone much brighter than those who saw their studies as a chore.
  • One study of 112 entry-level accountants found that those who believed they could accomplish what they set out to do scored the best job performance ratings from their supervisors 10 months later.

One meta-analysis of happiness research that brought together the results of over 200 scientific studies on nearly 275,000 people, found that “happiness leads to success in nearly every domain of our lives, including marriage, health, friendship, community involvement, creativity, and, in particular, our jobs, careers, and businesses.” [41]

Positive Spirituality
It’s a pity that the positive psychology movement took so long to discover what Nehemiah knew about 2,500 years ago:

“The joy of the Lord is your strength” (Neh. 8:10).

Yes, joy in God empowers the believer for life’s hardest challenges and loftiest aspirations. “Delight yourself also in the Lord, and He shall give you the desires of your heart” (Ps. 37: 4). Or as Jesus put it: “Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you” (Matt. 6:33).

Christians have such a positive advantage here, because we have so much more to be joyful about.

  • We love and are loved by the one true and living God.
  • We know Jesus as our Lord and Savior.
  • Our sins are forgiven.
  • We’ve experienced sovereign and saving grace.
  • We are justified and adopted into God’s world-wide and heaven-wide family.
  • Everything is working together for our good.
  • The Holy Spirit is sanctifying and empowering us.
  • We have all the promises of God.
  • The sting of death is removed and the grave has been de-fanged.
  • Jesus has prepared a place for us in heaven and will welcome us there.

What mind-, heart-, soul- and body-strengthening joy God gives us in the Gospel! He has baked the perfect happiness recipe for us to feast on, strengthening us to be more motivated, efficient, resilient, creative, and productive in every area of life.

Is it Time for More Positive Biblical Counseling?

Mar 19, 2013 • By David Murray • 10 Comments

Until the late 1990’s “there was a 17-to-1 negative-to-positive ratio of research in the field of psychology. In other words, for every one study about happiness and thriving there were 17 studies on depression and disorder” [The Happiness Advantage, 11].

Consequently, most psychologists spent their time helping people with problems get back to an “average” human experience. Their aim was to help people who were operating at sub-normal levels to get back to normal (e.g. sober up the alcoholic, remove anxiety, etc). Little attention was given to making people happy and optimistic, to lifting them above the average.

Positive Psychology
In 1998, Martin Seligman, then president of the American Psychological Association, rebelled against this imbalanced negativity and led a shift to studying the positive side of the curve, the above average, the “abnormally” happy, etc. Thus, “positive psychology” was born with the emphasis being “what works” rather than “what’s broken.” [12]

Instead of traditional psychology’s focus on “Why are people unhappy?” and “How can we help them out of the slough?” positive psychology asks, “What makes people happy?” and “How can we help them flourish and excel?”

Positive Biblical Counseling
As I survey biblical counseling literature, the ratio seems to be at least 17-1, negative-to-positive (and I’ve contributed to that imbalance.) If you asked most people what words comes to mind when they think of a biblical counselor, I don’t think “smile,” “laugh,” and “enthusiasm for life” would trip off the tongue (although there are some wonderfully cheery exceptions).

Isn’t it beyond time for biblical counseling to become a more positive movement? Yes, of course we must continue to get involved in the mess and rubble of people’s lives. But what about forging an additional positive path? Building another brighter dimension to the movement? Adding the banjo to the violin? Getting on to the front foot and leading people proactively rather than waiting for disasters and then reacting?

I’d like to see Biblical Counseling change the ratio by:

  • Getting Christians through the dark valleys AND leading them beside green pastures and still waters.
  • Wiping away their tears AND teaching them how to rejoice.
  • Fixing spiritual problems AND  promoting spiritual flourishing.
  • Targeting sins for demolition AND graces and gifts for strengthening and exercising.
  • Pulling the backslider out of the filthy ditch AND showing the godly new vistas of spiritual beauty.
  • Puncturing the pride of the arrogant AND building up the faith of the meek.
  • Removing despair AND instilling hope.
  • Quenching hate AND inflaming love.

Such pre-emptive, pro-active, and positive biblical counseling would not only enhance and strengthen an already strong and useful movement, it would also hugely bless God’s people, many of whom are tired with “average,” and who long to flourish, excel, and soar.

It might cheer us all up a bit as well.

The Power of the Flying Pink Elephant

Mar 7, 2013 • By David Murray • 2 Comments

British triple-jumper, Olympic gold-medal winner, and world record holder Jonathan Edwards professed to be a Christian throughout his athletics career, and publicly credited all his success to God. “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me,” was often on his lips in pre- and post-competition interviews. Christians throughout the UK rejoiced to hear him testify to the power of Christ in his life.

But when he retired from competition in 2003, his faith began to collapse. By 2007, he had renounced Christianity and embraced agnosticism, seemingly without regret. The Times announced his apostasy with the headline: “I’ve never been happier – says the man who won gold but lost God.”

Sports Psychology
In an interview posted on the Richard Dawkins Foundation website he admitted that the biblical verses he used to quote when competing was really just sports psychology dressed in religious clothes; confidence-boosting measures to give him a sense of higher purpose and divine assistance.

“I was always dismissive of sports psychology when I was competing, but I now realise that my belief in God was sports psychology in all but name…Believing in something beyond the self can have a hugely beneficial psychological impact, even if the belief is fallacious,” he says. “It provided a profound sense of reassurance for me because I took the view that the result was in God’s hands. He would love me, win, lose or draw.”

Psychological Deception
I was reminded of this dangerous psychological deception when I was recently re-reading Norman Vincent Peale’s best-selling The Power of Positive Thinking. Although Peale’s book has biblical verses sprinkled throughout, and although it has helped many people, much of what he taught people had no basis or grounding in reality.

For example, he recounts how salespeople who started repeating, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me,” increased their sales dramatically. What was not clear, however, was whether many of these people had any sense of who Christ was and is, which is really the key point in that verse.

Mantras and Elephants
It’s knowing who Christ was, what He did on the cross, and what He still does for us to this day that strengthens the believer for every task. For Peale’s salesmen, and Edwards, these kinds of biblical verses seemed to be more like a mantra, a self-assuring, almost self-hypnotizing sense that a higher power was on their side. Their sales and medals might have increased just as much if they had repeated, “I can do all things through the flying pink elephant who strengthens me.” As long as they believed there was a flying pink elephant and it was on their side.

Of course, we rejoice that there are many Christian athletes and salespeople who exercise truth faith in the real Christ as they seek to honor Him in their daily lives and callings. But the next time we’re tempted to embrace and celebrate the latest sports or entertainment celebrity who’s telling everybody “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me,” let’s just pause and ask: “Do they really know anything about this Christ? Is this more about Christ giving them success than Christ taking away their sins?” And, “Are they believing in Him for gold or for grace?” 

Everywhere Worship for Everywhere Grace

Feb 27, 2013 • By David Murray • 2 Comments

Worship need not be confined to our private devotions and our corporate worship. Yes, these are the times when we should expect to see the character of the Lord and bow before Him with joyful and reverent praise. However, we can see traces of the Lord’s character and beauty in all of His creation, and especially in the apex of His creation, humanity.

When we see beauty, even if it is on the easel of an unbelieving artist, in the writing of an unconverted novelist, or in the face of a supermodel, we trace it to the Beautiful One and worship Him.

When we see power, even when exercised by a non-Christian President, even when bursting out of the biceps of an atheist weightlifter, even when in the legs of a leopard, we trace it to the Powerful One and worship Him.

When we see wisdom, even when it’s displayed by a secular journalist, or a Muslim neighbor, or an unbelieving lecturer, we trace it to the Wise One and worship Him.

When we see love, even in imperfect relationships, in our unbelieving children, or in the patriotic soldier sacrificing His life for his friends, we trace it to the One who is Love and worship Him.

When we see loyalty, even in a 25-year employee, even in the patriotism of the French, even in that of a dog to His master, we trace it to the covenant faithfulness and unbreakable loyalty of the Faithful and Loyal One and worship Him.

When we see patience, even in most of the drivers stuck in the same snarl-up, in the irreligious nurse, or in the Home Depot employee as he deals with our stupid questions, we trace it to the One who is powerfully patient and worship Him.

When we see mercy or truthfulness, or whatever other virtue, wherever we see it, we use it to rise up to its ultimate source and worship Him.

The temptation is to take it for granted, or overlook or take no notice of it, or even to attribute it to the person rather than to God. But that’s not what the Psalmist did. He deliberately opened His eyes and sought out evidences of God’s common (or “everywhere”) grace and wherever He found it – in fields, in the sky, in the seasons, in the animals, in people, and even in military victories – He turned that everywhere grace to God’s everywhere glory in celebratory praises and humble worship (Psalm 65:5-13; 104:13-24; 145:9, 15, 16; esp look at the chorus in Psalm 136).

Everywhere grace does not save but points us to the One who does

Feb 21, 2013 • By David Murray • 1 Comment

Everywhere grace (see here and here) does much good to all who experience it. It enhances people’s characters, lives, and surroundings. We don’t want to even think what we and our world would be like without it. All the happiness, joy, peace, contentment, order, etc., in the world is the result of this almighty blessing.

And it’s not just the externals – the outward person or the external environment – that it impacts. It also influences the inner person, though without going so far as to save the soul. It imparts and stirs up human virtues such as generosity, patience, and parental love. It exerts a moral influence, giving our consciences a sense of right and wrong, and provoking  guilt to restrain further sin. It works on the heart but it does not renew nor regenerate it.

More grace is needed.

Or rather a different kind of grace is needed: the special, sovereign, and saving love of God.

However, we mustn’t separate these two kinds of grace entirely; they are intimately connected; the one should lead to the other. Everywhere grace is given to lead people to seek God’s special saving grace. So much everywhere grace is given that it leaves us without excuse for not seeking special grace (Rom. 1:20).

Everywhere grace is intended to draw us and call us to the special grace that’s located only in Christ. Paul challenges all recipients of everywhere grace: “Do you despise the riches of His goodness, forbearance, and longsuffering, not knowing that the goodness of God leads you to repentance?” (Rom. 2:4).

Do you see that? One of the most powerful tools in our evangelistic armoury is the goodness of God. If we only tell people about their sin, and refuse to point out God’s mercy and grace already in their lives, we are missing out a vital evangelistic lever. By highlighting God’s existing mercy and grace we encourage sinners to seek even more of it (2 Peter 3:9).

Everywhere grace does not save, but it does point us to the One who does.

God’s Every-Animal Grace

Feb 20, 2013 • By David Murray • 1 Comment

Why doesn’t the rain fall only on the Christian farmer’s fields? Why do the wicked enjoy vacations in Hawai? God’s everywhere grace (commonly called “common grace”). “He makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust” (Matt. 5:45).

Why do the evil have such full freezers and why do the wicked have such happy times? God’s everywhere grace that fills their hearts with food and gladness (Acts 14:17).

God’s everywhere grace is everywhere and experienced by everyone. Or to put it negatively, there is no one and no place on earth that is devoid of everywhere grace (Ps. 145:9; Acts 14:15-16).

Scottish islands and North Korean Gulags
That’s not just true of the Grand Canyon, the Niagara Falls, and the Scottish islands. Go to the the most notorious high security prison in Venezuala, go to North Korea’s gulags, go to Al Qaeda training camps in Pakistan, and there you’ll find some evidences of God’s everywhere grace.

Find the most sadistic child-abuser, the most disturbed serial killer, or the most monstrous terrorist, and you’ll find everywhere grace somewhere in their lives. You’ll find some faint traces of God’s undeserved kindness. Even breath itself.

It’s hard to see – the evil is so thick and dark that it almost envelops everything else – but awful though these places and people are, none of them are as bad as they possibly could be. The Lord lightens every person that comes into the world (John 1:4).

Even the most hardened criminals have some code of honor that draws the line somewhere in what they would do or not do. North Korean prison guards can still extend surprising mercy to their terrified captives. Al Qaeda operatives cook one another food and share funny stories around their camp fires. These are only traces, the remaining vapors of God’s everywhere grace, I know, but still, if we can see it there and in these people, can we not more easily see it in our workplaces and in our boss?

Grace for animals?
And even if for a time you cannot see God’s everywhere grace in the people around you, what about the animals? Yes, God’s everywhere grace extends to animals too. Why don’t the animals tear one another to pieces until there’s only one left? What can explain the affection of our dogs, the playfulness or our cats, and the cuteness of our hamsters? Yes, God’s every-animal grace.

Of course, God’s everywhere grace is not everywhere in the same proportions. God gives it according to His sovereign wisdom and power, and He chooses to give more of it to some people and places than to others.

Here’s a question for you: Does God sometimes give more of His everywhere grace to unbelievers than he does to believers (those who have been given His special saving grace)? Does that explain why we sometimes find unbelievers are kinder and just nicer people than some Christians?

See Previous Post: God’s Everywhere Grace

God’s Everywhere Grace

Feb 19, 2013 • By David Murray • 12 Comments

What do you see when you look at your neighbor? Do you see his dodgy business dealings, his chaotic garage, his overgrown lawn, his marital tiffs, and his bad language?

Is that all you see? Is there nothing good you can think of?

What about the time he helped you start your car that icy morning? What about his devotion to his wife (despite their noisy arguments)? Or his kindness to your children? Or his heroic service in Operation Desert Storm?

Are these qualities not worth pondering and appreciating?

Barking boss and complaining customers
Now let’s get in the SUV and go to your workplace. Right, what do you see there?

A barking boss, cheating colleagues, complaining customers, and unreliable computers?

Is that all you see? I know it’s all you talk about when you come home every night. But are you seeing the whole picture? Is there no one with any skill or talent? Does everyone treat everyone like dirt every day? Are there no kind words or actions in the rest zone or staff room? Think of all that the machines and computers do accomplish each day. Do customers never express appreciation?

Seriously ask yourself, challenge yourself, are you seeing the whole picture? Or are you overlooking or ignoring a number of benefits and blessings in your workplace?

Damaging and deliberate blindness
If I’ve just described you at home or at work, then you are closing your eyes, ears, and minds to the grace of God, which is not only a serious sin, but it’s also incredibly damaging to you.

“Never!” you retort. “I deeply appreciate God’s grace, I talk about it all the time. But these people and places are just sinful. They have no idea of God’s grace. The people are lost and going to hell. The places are fallen and decaying and destined for everlasting burning. I know God’s grace when I see it, and it ain’t anywhere to be found over the fence or in the factory.”

I agree that these people and places are marred by sin and misery; without salvation, they are doomed. And yet, and yet, I insist that you are choosing not to see the grace of God in these people and places. I’m not talking about God’s saving grace of course, but about what is often called His common grace.

Saving grace is reserved for God’s people alone and results in their salvation and sanctification. Common grace, is experienced by everyone to one degree or another, and although this results in signifcant benefits and blessings in everyone’s lives, it does not save nor sanctify anyone.

Common grace includes all the gifts and blessings God distributes to everyone (hence “common”) and His restraining of evil in us and around us. All of that, the positive giving and the negative restraining, is grace, because it’s God dealing with His creatures in mercy, not justice. As John Murray put it: “Common grace is every favour of whatever kind or degree, falling short of salvation, which this undeserving and sin-cursed world enjoys at the hand of God.”

Deny and downplay sin?
I don’t want to deny or downplay sin and its terrible impact on our world and its people, on our neighbors and family. However, if all we see in these areas is sin and misery, we’re closing our eyes to God’s work of grace all over the world and all around us. Yes, God’s common grace is really that common; it extends to all places and all people. There’s no inch or milimeter, tribe or people, neighbor or son, where His grace is not found to some degree.

If we do shut out common grace we’re also shutting down worship and joy, because the more we recognize God’s common grace, the more we will worship God and the more joy we will have in our lives. Common grace produces common worship and common joy. It will change the way we look at everyone and everyplace. Instead of just looking for evidence of sin, usually not hard to find, we will also look for evidence of God’s work, and rejoice in it. We will be less suspicious and cynical, more open to beauty, more enthusiastic to praise and appreciate God and His works.

It may sound more pious to only focus on the sin and lostness of people. But if we do that, if we exclude from view God’s work in, through, and around them, we are shutting our eyes to a beautiful part of God’s daily work and we are missing an opportunity to worship Him for His gracious work.

Renaming ceremony
To help us prise open our eyes and hearts to God’s common grace, let’s start by renaming it. “Common” sounds so, well, common. It could be read and heard in a demeaning way, as if it’s grace that’s not worth much, cheap grace as it were. So let’s call it “everywhere grace.” I toyed with the idea of calling it “everywhere love” as love is easier for most people to understand than grace. However, love can be deserved; grace, by definition, can never be deserved. As we need to preserve the “underserving” nature of this, let’s just call it “everywhere grace.” And let it lead to everywhere worship and everywhere joy.

Next: God’s Every-Animal Grace

10 Ways to Give Constructive Criticism

Feb 6, 2013 • By David Murray • 13 Comments

If I only preached on what I’d mastered, I’d never preach again. Sometimes, I’ve even had to preach on topics that I’d barely begun to understand or do. That’s the territory I’m in today with this blog post. I’d say that offering constructive criticism is probably one of my weakest areas, even worse that my ability to receive it! So, take this very much as “Here’s where I’d like to go,” or “Here’s what I’ve learned about constructive criticism from a lifetime of giving destructive criticism.”

1. It’s preceded by praise
I don’t believe in “the sandwich principle” that says you must put a slice of praise before and after every criticism. That often devalues the praise and deceives the person. However, I do believe that for criticism to have any hope of accomplishing anything, it should be set in the wider context of praise. There should be praise in the bank, before we start drawing down with any criticisms.

2. It’s infrequent
On the basis of #1, some people think that a little bit of praise sprinkled here and there permits them to launch frequent nuclear missiles at their unfortunate targets. In Practicing Affirmation, Sam Crabtree suggests a praise/criticism ratio of at least 3:1 and preferably closer to 5:1. But he also says that “relationships are healthy when so much affirmation is being spread around that no one is keeping track of either affirmation or correction.”

3. It’s limited
Criticism should be more like a sniper’s bullet than buckshot. It aims at one specific target and refuses to take potshots at anything else. “And while we’re at it, let me tell you…” Please don’t.

4. It majors on majors
If you’re going to criticize every fault and failing of everyone around you, you’re going to be very busy…and lonely. We live in a sinful world. The best of us are flaw-full. We simply must learn to overlook minor faults in others – not talk about them to others and, if possible, not even think about them. Save your critical energy for major targets. That way you’ll help yourself and others.

5. It’s supported by evidence
First, make sure you are criticizing what God criticizes, that you’re not basing everything simply on your own preferences or prejudices. Second, can you prove it? Can you point to evidence to support your criticism? Is “I think…” and “I feel…” and “I suspect…” the best you’ve got? Then let it go.

6. It’s aim is building not demolition
All criticism involves some element of demolition: wrong conduct to be torn down,  wrong beliefs to be razed. But the ultimate aim is to build something better, even beautiful, in its place. If our motive is to leave a person’s life in smoldering ruins, then we are doing the devil’s work. But if our aim is a better person, a stronger person, a more mature person, then we are in the profitable business of constructive criticism.

7. It’s prayerfully considered
It’s so easy to spout out an ill-considered or nil-considered criticism in response to an immediate event or conversation. That rarely accomplishes anything beneficial, and usually results in a shouting (or crying) match. No matter how tempting, it is almost always advisable to take 24 hours at least and to pray over it. That should help purify the motive, identify the best target, and dampen the emotions. Which brings us to…

8. It’s dispassionate
This is probably my greatest weakness of many others in this area. I find it so hard to be calm and cool about certain things. My red face, tense voice, and shaky hands start people’s alarm bells ringing, and, unsurprisingly, their defenses go up, as does their temperature. Not a recipe for building anything good.

9. It comes from the right person
The Bible is very clear about the need to respect our elders. Usually that will mean we will rarely offer criticism to our superiors, or if we do, it will be with strict qualifications (1 Tim. 5:1-2, 19). I’ve sometimes been asked by a boss or an older Christian to say if I notice anything in their character or conduct that is wrong. I find that almost impossible to do. And I think that’s OK. Our superiors should normally look to their superiors for correction. And let’s focus on those whom the Lord has committed to our responsibility, not on those we have no relationship with and no authority over.

10. It’s humble
Have you ever changed as a result of an arrogant person pointing out your faults? No, neither have I. In fact, I’ve probably determined to do what was critiqued even more. But when a person humbly comes alongside me, confesses his own faults, admits his own struggles, maybe even in that particular area, then my ears are open and so is my heart.

10 Reasons Why it is More Blessed to Give than to Receive

Feb 5, 2013 • By David Murray • 2 Comments

The most unbelieved beatitude in the Bible is: “It is more blessed to give than receive” (Acts 20:35). The giver happier than the getter? Surely some mistake? That goes against all our intuitions and instincts. So let me help you to believe it and act upon it by giving you ten reasons why it is more blessed to give than to receive.

  1. Giving obeys God’s command
  2. Giving submits to God’s Lordship
  3. Giving exhibits God’s heart
  4. Giving illustrates God’s salvation
  5. Giving trusts God’s provision
  6. Giving widens God’s smile
  7. Giving advances God’s kingdom
  8. Giving promotes God’s sanctifying of us
  9. Giving testifies to God’s power
  10. Giving praises God’s character

Read the full article over at Christianity.com.

5 Ways to Profit from Christians’ Sins

Feb 1, 2013 • By David Murray • 1 Comment

Yesterday we looked at five strategies to stop us getting pulled down by the faults and failings of other Christians. If that didn’t work, here are five more:

1. Springboard from Christians to Christ
When you are tempted to start mulling over someone’s imperfection, think instead about the opposite perfection in Jesus. If you are pained by someone’s harsh or lying tongue, consider how Jesus’ words were full of grace and truth. If a friend is condemning the pastor’s self-promotion, turn attention to the One who made Himself of no reputation and took upon Him the form of a servant. If you are discussing the rampant materialism of some Christians, remember also to ponder the Christ who, though He was rich, yet made Himself poor, that we through His poverty might become rich. There is no sin found in a Christian that cannot act as a springboard to Christ and his contrasting beauty.

2. See your own faults in them
It’s amazing how we can be especially hard on people who have the same peculiar failings as we do. It’s a kind of perverse technique for salving our own consciences: if I can find someone who’s even worse than me, it somehow makes me feel a whole lot better. The hyper-critical are often the most hypocritical.

When you detect that you are being especially critical of another Christian, seriously ask yourself if it’s because this is your own besetting sin as well.  Are you appalled at Lesley’s pride? Maybe it’s too much like your own. Are you horrified at Jim’s gossip? Maybe your tongue’s also out of control.  Are you aghast at the Brown’s spending habits? Maybe it’s because you’ve been in debt for years too. God may have sent these people into your life to act as a mirror to your own sins. Don’t attack the mirror; use it to see what’s wrong in your own life.

3. Measure Christ’s forgiveness
As the person who has been forgiven most also loves most, ask the Lord to show you how much you have been forgiven. The more you appreciate the depth, length, breadth and height of God’s forgiveness, the more you will love Him.

But we can do this by proxy as well. When we see how much other Christians still sin, we can get the spiritual ruler out to measure the immeasurable pardoning love of God towards them as well. And when we realize we can never find enough rulers or tapes to get record accurate dimensions of this forgiving grace, we can love God for that as well. He who has been forgiven much loves much. He who sees how much others have been forgiven, loves God for that too.

Nothing silences criticism so much as pondering how Christ has loved people like us. That He loved me and gave Himself for me is amazing. That he loved them and gave Himself for them, is sometimes even more amazing.

4. Identify the accuser
The hyper-critical tend to think of themselves as hyper-holy. However, unknown to them, they may well be at that very moment an unholy instrument in the hand of the evil One. The Devil has made a career out of maligning and denouncing Christians, so much so that He is called “The Accuser.” He lays his charges directly and via intermediaries, some of whom are unsuspecting Christians who actually think they are doing the Lord’s work. He comes with lies about Christians and he comes with truths about Christians, but whether his allegations are true or false his aim is the same, pull down Christians so as to pull down our thoughts, our emotions, and our actions. Why not ask yourself, if perhaps you are a unwitting pawn in the devil’s clever hands, doing his dirty work while he cackles in the background.

5. Keep Jesus front and center
Our minds are a vast universe demanding to be filled. Each of our senses is continually vacuuming information into our internal galaxies, sending various facts and feelings into mental orbit, darkening or lightening our lives as they go.

We can’t stop our sensory vacuums, but we can decide what gets sucked inside. We can direct our nozzles to the dark hypocrisy of other believers, or we can hoover up truths about Christ. The former creates black holes; the latter produces a non-stop sunrise (Lk. 11:34-36). Suck in the bright light of Christ; let Him and His word dwell in you richly.

Above all, consider that Jesus will yet perfect His most imperfect people and present them to His Father with exceeding joy and great glory. What a transformation! What a metamorphosis! What glory to God and good will toward men. What a Savior!

Previous posts in this series
If that’s Christianity you can keep it!
When Christians let us down and get us down
Seeing Christ in the worst Christians

Seeing Christ in the worst Christians

Jan 31, 2013 • By David Murray • 14 Comments

How do we stop getting so depressed at the failings of Christian pastors and people? Here are five of the ten strategies I try to use. We’ll look at the remaining five tomorrow.

1. Try to see Christ in even the worst Christian
Although Christ is molding each of His people into His beautiful image, none of us show that image perfectly. Our immaturity and sin blight and deform His work. However, no matter how marred the image, there is still a trace of it somewhere in every Christian. Just as even a severely disabled person still shows some lovely aspects of God’s image in them, so the most fallen Christian has something somewhere in their lives where they excel us in portraying Christ’s image. It’s up to us to find that and admire that.

I’ve known some pretty ugly Christians through the years, but as I look back, I admit I overlooked or failed to linger on areas of their lives where Christ was undoubtedly leaving his fingerprints. And today, as we survey our fellow-believers, let’s make the choice to major on Christ’s positive work in them rather than on all the devil’s negatives.

2. Pray for seeming hypocrites
We’ve all done it. We end up in company where we start criticizing someone and very soon we’ve torn them in shreds and left them in pieces. Sometimes we don’t need the help of company to do our shredding; we can grind them to powder in the cruel confines of our own sharp-toothed minds. Although there can be some strange short-term satisfaction in these cruel pleasures, we are inflicting deep long-term trauma on ourselves.

When tempted to start drilling and sawing others, why not start to pray for them. If we really do fear that they are hypocrites, they need our prayers far more than our incisive analysis. And in the process, we’ll discover something: it’s very hard to hate someone we pray for. It’s almost impossible to pull someone down when we are prayerfully raising him or her up to heaven for God’s blessing. Prayer never changes God. It sometimes changes the person we pray for. It always changes us.

3. Spend time with the inconsistent
It’s easy to criticize from a keyboard or from a pew, when a person is at some distance away from us, we aren’t really involved in their lives, and we don’t really know them. It’s much more difficult to scorch people when we’ve had a coffee with them or walked a mile with them. Then we realize they are human after all, or that they’ve had an awful childhood, or that they are enduring a depressing marriage, or that there is some other stress in their lives that puts their words and actions in a different light. Or we might discover that we’ve completely misjudged them and that the fault is more in our perception and discernment than in their conduct.

4. Be patient
As a pastor I’ve been sometimes appalled at the way mature Christians expect young Christians to come out of the shell as fully grown men and women of God. And when they aren’t, down comes the sledgehammer upon them. Some older Christians have conveniently forgotten that they were young once, somehow imagining that they skipped spiritual infancy and adolescence.

I’ve sometimes been stunned at the way some poor specimens of Christianity have suddenly blossomed into beautiful flowers of grace, and even into majestic cedars of Lebanon. People I had given up all hope for are transformed into holy, zealous, steady and reliable Christians. Sometimes it’s marriage or children that does it. Sometimes it’s trial or suffering. But sometimes it’s simply the sovereign work of God. I think God loves to revive His work in those we have written off and given up on.

5. Speak positively about other Christians
One of the most lethal habits that Christians can fall into is to talk negatively about other Christians in front of their children or in front of unbelievers. I’ve seen children spiritually devastated due to regular Sunday meals that served up a diet of roast pastor, barbecued elders, and boiled Christians. In some cases, tragically, it turned the children off the church for life. In other cases, the negativity created perpetually discontented church members and adherents. They had gotten so habituated to criticism in their childhood that they could not break the cycle when they became adults.

One of the greatest favors we can do for our children is to speak positively about our pastors and about other Christians. Even when there may have been some flaws in the preaching, find the good things, highlight them, express appreciation for them, and discuss them with your kids. Draw attention to Christians who are serving the Lord well and use them as models for your children. And when, regrettably, you may have to discuss a certain Christian’s sins, then do your best to also mention evidences of God’s good work in their lives.

Previous posts in this series
If that’s Christianity you can keep it!
When Christians let us down and get us down

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