ClydeStyle

Category: Uncategorized

  • Maturity in Christ

    I often hear Christians and non-Christians painting a picture of Christianity in a very primitive state based on their understanding. What I mean is that they are still looking at scriptures and saying what they see instead of what they understand. The problem: When you take what you see in scripture and never look beyond it, all you get is a form of godliness. When you study and gain an understanding you get the form and function.

    So for instance John 13:23-24, “34 A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another. 35 By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.  This is a very “easy” verse to understand, but what you walk away with will depend on your level of maturity. Some people see the fact that there is a “commandment” in the first verse. This same person that sees the commandment will tell you that Christ commands us to do things. They will then begin to process their relationship with God based on a slave/master relationship.

    Maturity doesn’t even see the word commandment. Maturity emphasizes the function of this verse and only sees the love. The mature person does not feel “forced” to love. They don’t think that there is a negative consequence waiting on them if they don’t love. The mature person, based on their understanding, has a heart so soft toward God that the willingness to “do” comes from an inner desire to please God and not a fearful expectation of being punished by God.

    Spiritual maturity compels us to forgive, not because someone asked us to, but because God has forgiven us. We love, not because the object of our love makes it easy, it’s because God first loved us. We help one another, comfort one another and pray for one another, not because of a command, but because of what we understand.

    Hebrews 5:12-14 says, “12 For when for the time ye ought to be teachers, ye have need that one teach you again which be the first principles of the oracles of God; and are become such as have need of milk, and not of strong meat. 13 For every one that useth milk is unskilful in the word of righteousness: for he is a babe. 14 But strong meat belongeth to them that are of full age, even those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil.”

    There is a serious need for Christians to move on to maturity and stop debating the gospel and start sharing it; to stop scaring people to be obedient and start encouraging people to be.

  • Watch “Caldwell B. Esselstyn, Jr., MD on how to reverse …” on YouTube

    Caldwell B. Esselstyn, Jr., MD on how to reverse …: http://youtu.be/sl97IvbfUNQ

  • Watch “Caldwell B. Esselstyn, Jr., MD on how to reverse …” on YouTube

    Caldwell B. Esselstyn, Jr., MD on how to reverse …: http://youtu.be/sl97IvbfUNQ

  • His Grace reaches me, but who does my grace reach?

    I feel so good when I think about all that God has done for me. I think about it often.  Having received something so precious as grace (and understanding it), I can’t help but be moved with compassion to help others.

    If we looked at Christianity from a vocational perspective, it would fall under the category of “helping professions”. We have been called to be servants fit for the Master’s use. I don’t think we all see that as our mission. Furthermore, I don’t think we generally look at ourselves as missionaries. There are too many differing views about our purpose.

    It is clear to me that God’s grace was given to me that I may make a difference in this world. How big of a difference? That depends on my gifts and how I use them. My motivation? It’s not because the recipients deserve my grace, but because of how freely I accepted God’s grace. In my most difficult times, He reached out and touched me and I can’t help but want to reach out and touch someone else. As a therapist I have heard many, many sad stories and in my lifetime I need not complain. I now know first hand that there is always somebody going through something worse.

    Here’s my point: The ability to give is a gift. We were not born giving, in fact it was more the opposite. Giving is a learned behavior and there are some people who are really good at it. There are others who need to learn more about it and then there are those who could care less. God gave us a choice to decide who we would be. I know to some it doesn’t seem like a huge deal to have driven an elderly person to the doctor or paid a bill for someone or even spent personal time in a nursing home. What if just those people with twitter accounts reached out to someone — not for selfish reasons (telling someone off, borrowing money, etc.), but to extend grace? Can you just imagine unconditionally helping someone as a way to tell God thanks? He can.

  • Watch “Lauryn Hill I GET OUT MTV Unplugged” on YouTube

    Lauryn Hill I GET OUT MTV Unplugged: http://youtu.be/xrDMRFvHK18

  • Comfort one another with these words

    Some people have the natural ability to tear people down. And I don’t mean tear them down physically as in a beat down or something UFCish. I mean with words.

    We do not understand how destructive our words really are. Prisons, mental health institutes and cemeteries are filled with people who were destroyed by the words of others. There are people walking around right now and some may even be reading this blog who have allowed someone in their life to make them feel less than. Someone told you that you were ugly, fat, stupid or weak. Others may have implied it which to me is worse. The bottom line is you did not deserve to be told those things.

    On the bright side, today’s blog is designed to help us become builders – builders of people. We need to understand the power of the spoken word and let compassion be our safe guard for the things we say. We should be spraying words of encouragement all over the place.

    Encouragement includes the giving of courage, hope, confidence, support and help. It is not compliments or catch phrases, but words and deeds born out of actions from a loving heart. The Greek language indicates the word comes from the same family of words used to describe the Holy Spirit as our paraclete (Comforter), “one who comes alongside us to help.”

    In the book of Hebrews 3:13 the bible says, “But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called Today, so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness.” Compassionate hearts encourage and they look for opportunities to do it daily. The way in which we encourage is important as well. When society or even Satan gives you reasons to be anxious, it is the encourager who comes with words from the holy writ and calms you. Where we are overcome by fear, the encourager stabilizes us with scripture. And when Satan tells us a lie, the encourager brings God’s truth.

    What a great week to spend time searching for those who need a word of encouragement. If nothing else, tell them that there is someone who is listening and he hears everything that we say. Tell them that there is someone who answers every prayer that we secretly pray. And then tell them that there is someone who loves us and he will NEVER turn us away. It’s Jesus the Savior from Mt. Calvary and he hears everything that we say!

  • Changing shoes always births a fresh perspective

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    Those of us who live in the south were privileged to get hit with an abnormal winter storm last week that shutdown cities, closed schools and universities and had people flooding to the grocery stores.

    Six inches of snow and a few inches of ice fell in Charlotte, NC. People were literally afraid to drive and the governor strongly encouraged everyone to stay off the roads. This story led national news because ole man winter wanted a vacation so he went south for a week.

    If this had happened in the Midwest it would not have been newsworthy. In the month of January, Detroit set a city record getting 39.1 inches of snow. You would have to go back almost 100 years to find 39 inches of snow in Charlotte!

    North Carolinians got a dose of what it feels like to wrestle with snow. Just for about a week, the “dirty south” was purified from its warm weather delusions. For them the lesson is simple: In everyone’s life a little rain and snow must fall!

    It’s difficult to take warm weather for granted when you have had a run in with snow. It’s difficult to not count your blessings, when calamity has visited you too.

    You see, we really should be living our lives in gratitude to God for what he has done. And then when hard times come we remember the good times and say thanks. When the good times come back, we should remember the hard times and say thanks. This concept keeps us in a state of thanksgiving for whatever we experience because we know God is working for our good.

    Let us not have to change shoes with someone less fortunate before we can realize the blessings we have. We should make every effort to let the people in our lives who are a benefit to us know that we appreciate them … And give God the glory!

  • Must see for Bruce Lee admirers like me!

  • What if?

    Upon occasion I like to sit and day-dream about the world being different. I mean if we as Americans had a different way of thinking. What if we never looked to gain anything from anybody? What if the motivating factor for everything we did had to do with the betterment of humanity and not the financial gain of ourselves?

    Dr. Jonas Salk was the person credited for the discovery of the cure for polio in 1955. Two years later Dr. Albert Sabin created the oral version. As time went on and the research continued we began to learn more things about polio all in the interest of science and humanity. These two men lived good lives and neither wanted to gain financially from their work. Dr. Salk, when asked who owns the patent for the polio cure said, “the American people own it.” These two vaccines helped remove polio in many different parts of the world. Within the period of 1988 to 2007, the number of cases was trimmed down significantly from 350,000 to 1,652. 

    By 1994, polio was completely removed from the Americas. In 2000, it was erased in almost 36 countries within the Western Pacific region including Australia and China. In 2002, Europe became polio-free. By 2008, only four countries remained affected by this disease, namely Afghanistan, Pakistan, India and Nigeria. Today, the transfer of poliovirus from one person to another has been widely disrupted. However, wild poliovirus transmissions are still very much possible, particularly in areas with poor sanitation as well as low vaccination coverage.

    What if this effort was repeated for heart disease, diabetes, cancer and AIDS? What if the pharmaceutical companies were all not for profits and a successful year for them would be to “break even” with their budgets and not make a profit. What if their sole drive and goal was to make themselves obsolete? What if hospitals were all not for profits with the same goal– to educate people to the point that they never needed to be hospitalized? What if as a country, it mattered to us what we ate, how we interacted with the environment and how we treated one another?

    You can’t help but wonder if we, working together, would have figured out time travel, gain the ability to move objects or even learned to fly. We would most certainly have worked out starvation and degenerative diseases. We could even eliminate rich and poor people, make education completely free and enjoy world peace.

    And then I woke up.

  • You can’t do better than all A’s

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    There is less than a week left in 2013 and now comes decision time. Most will attempt to make some sort of resolution for the New Year and normally before Valentine’s day, it’s over. Whatever was so important at the close of last year fizzles out before the New Year really gets started.

    The problem is not in assessment usually, it’s in implementation. There are too many people who don’t know what to do. And then for the ones who have figured out what to do, they have a problem following through. It leads to a year full of complaints and anger turned inward — depression!

    So this year, let’s not make a resolution but follow this AAA plan that will take you to where you’re trying to go. This plan begins with meditation and prayer. You must ask the almighty God for clarity and strength. Pray that your path be made clear and that you have the strength to follow through. We get caught up sometimes asking God for things he has already given us. For example, there are people who know they are stuck in a horrible relationship that only brings them down. They know it and everyone around them knows it, yet they are praying for a sign from God. The vainest prayer is one where you’re asking for something God has already provided.

    So then, the first “A” is Assessment. It is imperative that nothing in this stage gets “sugar-coated” and honesty abounds. Stop lying to yourself about your circumstance or situation. If you won’t be honest with yourself, then who will? This step can be as simple as writing down what you don’t like and why. Then of the things you don’t like, what can YOU change?

    The next “A” is Acceptance. Before anyone can move forward there has to be acceptance of the assessment. If due diligence was done in step 1, then open your heart to receive information that is profitable for you. I may have to accept that I don’t make enough money for the lifestyle I’m trying to lead. I may need to go back to school, change careers or advance in the field. Our comfort zone will be attacked at this step because you have to decide if positive change trumps comfort. I know people who want to lose weight, but don’t want to compromise what they currently eat — which is the problem. The day that losing weight for them trumps what they eat, guess what will happen?

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    The last “A” is for Action. Create a plan starting with the destination or end result. Where would you like to be at the end of the year? How much weight do you want to lose? How much debt is there to be paid? Whatever your accepted assessment discovered for you, make that your target and start backwards from there to get the plan. For example, say a person wants to save $10,000 next year. That’s less than $1,000 per month above their monthly expenses. That may mean they would have to increase their revenue stream. I know people who have taken extra jobs because they have accumulated extra debt. What about a person who loves themselves enough to take on an extra job — not for debt purposes, but for the sake of their own prosperity? What would it be like to end the next year with an extra 10k?

    Or say a person wants to lose weight — which is really one of the easiest things to do. Education on nutrition is all that’s needed. You can actually just eat whole food and lose weight. For a person to lose 100 pounds, save 10k, fix their credit or do anything just takes a denying of self. Can you deny self for the benefit of self?

    The triple A plan works and it’s logical. If you need help, I’ll coach you. If you need encouragement, I’ll tell. If you want real change, Clydestyle is here for you. I’ll deal with your spirit and your body and we will together heal your soul. Happy New Year!