Learning How to Do Life Well
As promised, here is the link to the sermon series from Jimmy Evans entitled “I Changed My Mind”. When you go to the page, you will see the links to the other parts of the series. You will also see links to many other great messages from the pastors and guest speakers at Gateway Church in Southlake, Texas.
[LINK]
We conclude the series, BetterBEST, discovering how to live the life God designed for us.
Tim looks at the trade-offs we must make, and what it means to trade-off in the process of getting better.
Tim gives an introduction to our new series, BetterBEST. Is there an area of your life that needs to get better? Do you know the standard that God has set for your life?
Tim talks about living the life God has designed for us.
It was a busy week.
That’s my excuse. In the rush and bustle of the week – from 10/20 to 10/26 – I inadvertently deleted the recording of Sunday, October 20, 2013. Before I posted it. {sigh}
The notes from class are online, and you can look at those. Sorry if you were looking forward to hearing Trudi’s lesson on confrontation.
We won’t take up anymore time in class talking about anger right now. Next week we’re moving on with the third emotion we have to handle well in order to keep our hearts whole and healthy.
But one thing I [Tim] failed to reiterate in class is this: while forgiving is essential to removing anger from our hearts, and we should be very conscious of forgiving every time we are angry, there is an additional process we need to go through. It’s what Paul mentioned in Ephesians 4:32 – “…be kind and compassionate…“. Getting rid of the anger — and the slander, gossip, evil thoughts, etc. that go with anger — is not enough. Canceling the debt is critical, but if we stop there, we haven’t done enough.
In fact, if we simply cancel the debt, but don’t take proactive steps to be kind and compassionate to those that have hurt us, we will find that we are continually reminding ourselves of our decision to cancel the debt. It’s like a farmer preparing his field. Imagine the farmer tilling the soil, removing all the weeds, but never planting anything. Kindness and compassion have to be planted or the relationship will never yield a harvest for either of you.
This is where we usually let our feelings stop us. We “cancel the debt”, but we wait for our feelings to settle down before we try to be kind and compassionate. Kindness and compassion will be as much of a decision as canceling the debt was.
Your thoughts?
Trudi begins a new series based on the book by Robert Morris, The Power of Your Words.
Here is the video we showed at the end of the class…