Will Davis Jr.'s Blog, page 76

Once Again, an Affair Ruins Everything

Nothing good ever comes from an affair. I mean NOTHING. In the 30-plus years I’ve been in full-time ministry, I’ve never seen an affair produce any good. Can and does God redeem even the worst marital decisions. Yes, I’ve seen him do it. But does one human betraying his or her spouse to engage with another ever yield good? No. Never.

Our most recent Exhibit A is former Director of the CIA David Patraeus Patraeus abruptly resigned his post on Friday after the FBI revealed that he had been involved in an affair with his biographer. And just like that, the man’s family is in shambles and his career is over. And what good has he wrought?

He’s thrown the Intelligence community into chaos and quite possible endangered national security
He’s embarrassed his boss, who just happens to be the President
He’s devastated his wife and family
He’s set a terrible example for those who view him as a role model
And he will be remembered as the guy who had one of the most powerful and high impact jobs in the world and lost it because he couldn’t stay out of someone else’s bed.

Solomon, himself the product of an adulterous relationship, knew firsthand the devastation that marital infidelity brought to a house. He wrote: “Why be captivated, my son, by an adulteress? Why embrace the bosom of another man’s wife? For a man’s ways are in full view of the LORD, and he examines all his paths. The evil deeds of a wicked man ensnare him; the cords of his sin hold him fast. He will die for lack of discipline, led astray by his own great folly,” Proverbs 5:20-23 .

And so I’m back to my first point: affairs never pay off, they never bring any good. There is no such thing as a justifiable affair.

But General Patraeus isn’t alone in his failure. Every year millions of American husbands and wives fall for the same lie. Without even a shred of evidence that says affairs bring true happiness, they jump into the sack with someone other than their spouse in the hopes that they are somehow the grand exception, that somehow they’ll be the 100,000,000,000,000th of 1% where the affair is actually best for all concerned. But they’re not. All their sin does is what Jesus said it would–kill, steal and destroy.

Friends, I don’t fault General Patraeus for being a sinner. My sin is no different from his. I am just as capable for wreaking relational havoc with my own decisions as he has with his. We are all on equal footing in that category. I just want to ask those of you who are currently in an affair or are dangerously close to having one to rethink your logic. What makes you think you’re the exception? You might as well jump out of an airplane without a parachute and hope that you’ll have the exceptional soft landing.

No good–none–will come from your affair. End it now and save everyone even more heartache.

Want to know more about affair-proofing your marriage? CLICK HERE.

FOR IMMEDIATE AFFAIR RECOVERY INFORMATION, CLICK HERE.

Five Simple Ways to Move Toward Enough During the Holiday Shopping Season

Black Friday (the biggest shopping day of the year) is only 11 days away. The ads for Thanksgiving sales have already started. The mantra that “you need this, you deserve that,” is already being chanted. And if you’re not fully equipped, you’ll fall prey to it.

Don’t. Determine right now to live differently this year. You don’t have to hit January and wonder where all your money went. Here are 5 great ways to move toward enough during this holiday shopping blitz.

1. Pray about your spending. I’m serious. Start today asking God how much you should spend on yourself and on gifts this year. Remember, it’s his money anyway. He might appreciate being consulted before you blow it all on gifts that others won’t remember 3 months from now. Ask God to give you wisdom and disciple in your spending habits.

2. Set a holiday spending budget. After you have prayed about your holiday spending, set a budget and stick with it. Determine what is responsible, affordable and God-honoring for your to spend in the next 7 weeks, and then spend only that, not a penny more.

3. Put non-profits and churches at the top of your giving list. Give the bulk of your holiday budget to churches and non-profits, many of whom are carrying the load for serving the poor, fighting oppression and sharing the life-transforming news of Jesus Christ. Such ministries are notoriously under-funded. Determine early on that the bulk of your Christmas spending will be on those who are changing the world.

4. Decide that you already have enough. Unless you’re living at or below the poverty line, you probably don’t really need anything. You may have wants, but not needs. Go ahead and confess that you have enough and tell people that when they ask you what you want for Christmas. And, don’t spend on yourself. Don’t fall victim to the entitlement message that will be blasted this holiday season. You really do have enough.

5. Write notes and give time. Instead of buying a tie that will be out of fashion in a year or giving a new set of steak knives, give the gift of yourself. Write someone a note that they will have until they die. Tell them what they mean to you. Give them a homemade certificate that commits you to 6 coffees (and conversions) with them over the next year. Those types of gifts matter far more and have much greater impact that throwing more stuff at an already overstuffed soul.

6. Bonus Suggestion–Read Enough: Finding More by Living with Less. It will forever transform how you see what you have.

What If You had a Performance Review with God? What would He Say?

Can I ask you a question? What would happen if you were invited to a face-to-face meeting with Jesus? Suppose it was just you and he for an hour, sitting directly across from each other, so close your knees were almost touching. What do you think he would say? Would you be uncomfortable? Is that a meeting you would look forward to? Would you eagerly jump at the chance to spend an hour with the incarnate God? Or, would you dread it? What would you do if you were told to spend an hour alone with Jesus?

For many, spending any time alone with God sounds absolutely wonderful. They know that some day they will be in his presence and they eagerly look forward to their unbroken fellowship with him. But for many others, unfortunately, such an invitation doesn’t sound too inviting. It’s not that they don’t love Jesus and long to finally and fully be in his presence; it’s just that many of them–or I should say “us”–live with a tremendous sense of guilt in our respective faith-walks. We know we don’t measure up to God’s high and holy standards. We believe that we are constantly letting Jesus down, embarrassing him and even causing him pain. And if you felt like that about someone–a boss, a parent, a spouse or a friend–would you look forward to spending time with him or her? Probably not.

So what do you think Jesus would say? If the conversation went badly, what words would he use? I’ve asked that question to adults and teenagers all over the country. The answers are typically the same:

I’m so disappointed in you.

What were you thinking?

You are a serious letdown.

You have no idea the damage you’ve done to my reputation.

If you were really a Christian, you wouldn’t act like you do.

If you really loved me, you’d try harder.

We’re done.

And one of my personal favorites: I’m really getting tired of forgiving the same old sin.

For a group of people  (Christians) that are supposedly saved by grace, loved unconditionally and secure in our relationship with Christ, we certainly carry a lot of guilt and relational baggage toward God. Our hearts and minds are filled with tapes that play over and over, and the messages aren’t very inspiring. You don’t measure up. You’re not doing enough. I can’t believe you call yourself a Christian.

The problem is that many of the things we believe Jesus would say to us are actually things he never said, and never would say. They’re patently unbiblical and don’t represent the heart of Christ. As Holy Spirit-sealed followers of Jesus, we must learn to push back against the mental messages that tell us how fed up with us God is. We must bring those rogue thoughts under the authority of our loving Lord Jesus. We need to rethink our theology and let God’s revealed truth direct our beliefs about him and not some fictitious statement that doesn’t even come close to accurately representing how Jesus feels about us. In short, we need to reject the things that Jesus didn’t say and start believing the things that he did.

Want to know more? CLICK HERE.

In a Struggling Economy or in a Time of Prosperity, How much Do I Really Need?

How much do I need. I mean really need. That’s the million-dollar question. And does what I need change when the economy is doing well? Are needs relative? Hmmmmm . . . .

I need food. I need air. I need water. But I also need clothes. I need a place to live. I need income. I need transportation. So what do I really need? And, when does need move over into the much more exciting world of want. I need food, but I want pizza. I need water, but I want it to be from the Rockies, or at least from an Arkansas spring. I need clothes, but I want Levi’s and Ariat boots. On and on it goes. That’s why we have such a difficult time knowing what we really need. Or stated differently, knowing how much is really enough. In the ever-graying world between wants and needs, finding enough can prove to be very elusive.

Enter Jesus. The man many of us call King of Kings and Lord of Lords never struggled with the concept of enough. The God who left heaven to live as slave, the King of the universe who had no earthly place to lay his head, the Creator of all things who died with absolutely nothing, never once struggled to figure out what enough meant. And he didn’t hesitate to make it clear to his disciples.

When his disciples asked him to teach them to pray, Jesus gave them the brief yet profound model of the Lord’s Prayer. In it, he included a line about seeking God’s provision. I’m sure you can quote it: Give us this day our daily bread, (Matthew 6:11). In one sweeping statement, Jesus presented his followers with a clear picture of what he considered to be enough. Jesus’ daily bread reference no doubt harkens back to the account of Israel’s wanderings in the wilderness, where God gave them daily provision of manna and quail for forty years.

In Jesus’ mind, that’s all God promises. He promises to give us what we need today. He doesn’t promise to provide for tomorrow, next week, next month or next year. He doesn’t promise to provide in advance for our retirement. All he offers is today. According to God, today is enough. And you know what’s really interesting? If we lived on what Jesus called enough, if we lived with just enough to meet our immediate needs, most of us would think we were poor. But we wouldn’t be. We’d simply have enough.

Want to know more about the concept of living with enough? CLICK HERE.

An Open Letter to Christians Disappointed in the Election Result

My Dear Brothers and Sisters, I greet you today in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.

I know that many of you are very troubled by yesterday’s election outcome and even more by the overall direction our country appears to be taking. You, like I, care deeply for this country and know that its ultimate hope lies in a set of values and beliefs that we appear to be rejecting as a nation. You view President Obama’s reelection as even further indication that the country we love is becoming something other, something different, something, quite frankly, you don’t respect as much. I understand that.

But I feel compelled to remind you today that what you and I do right now is very important. I feel this compulsion, in part, because I share some of your frustrations, but also because I have been quite frankly shocked at some things openly confessing Christians have said and/or written about our President in the last 24 hours. It has not been a good reflection of the Christ we serve.

Our Lord described us as salt and light. He said that we are to be the preserving and directing forces in our culture. He said that it would be our love–not our theology, our religious performances, and certainly not our political persuasions–that would be our greatest gift to our society. But he also warned that if we ceased to be salt, if we ceased to be light, and if we ceased to love, then we would become ineffective and lose our right to serve in his name.

I am afraid that we are getting dangerously close to becoming like the gripy Israelites who God left to die in the desert, or worse, the churches in Revelation who were dangerously close to losing their holy lampstands.

Perhaps we need to be reminded that God never promised us a certain way of life, or that the pursuit of happiness is an American, not a biblical virtue.

Perhaps we need to be reminded that for two thousand years Christians have lived under oppressive, repressive and even hostile governments and yet were still commanded to pray for their leaders.

Perhaps we need to be reminded that the vast majority of believers around the world live hand-to-mouth, sleep on the ground or in extremely rough, impoverished and unsafe settings, will never own a Bible, will never go to college, don’t have retirement accounts, don’t own or drive cars, don’t play golf on weekends or go on spontaneous shopping sprees, don’t have air-conditioned and heated church buildings, and never have to decide what they are going to wear out the next day. Americans, even in the economic challenges of the last several years, still have far more wealth and enjoy far more freedom than any nation in history.

And to all of that Jesus would say, to whom much is given much is required.

Christian brothers and sisters, we have work to do. It is the Church (believers in Jesus), that are the thermostat of a nation. Whatever we are set on is what our nation will become. If we are troubled by the direction our nation is going, then perhaps we need to compare our American Christianity to biblical Christianity, and adjust our thinking so that we are more of the latter than the former.

The future of our nation depends on it.

 

Perspective on Today’s Election

American’s are headed to the polls, and all signs point to tight race and thus, a divided country. Before we know the outcome, I’d like to offer these words of perspective:

In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord seated on a throne, high and exalted, and the train of his robe filled the temple. Above him were seraphs, each with six wings: With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying. And they were calling to one another: “Holy, holy, holy is the LORD Almighty; the whole earth is full of his glory. Isaiah 6:1-3

Kings, presidents and leaders are going to come and go. It’s not that they’re no important, they are and we need to pray for them. It’s just our hope has never been in our leaders. It has always been in the one who is the timeless, holy backdrop to every president’s term. It’s in the one whose magnificence fills the heavens. It’s in the one who–when the best that men have to offer fails, dies, or loses an election–stands as the eternal King of the Ages. Therein lies our hope, and whatever happens today pales in comparison.

So, vote your conscience today. Pray for and support the winner. And then, look up:

I lift up my eyes to the hills– where does my help come from? My help comes from the LORD, the Maker of heaven and earth. Psalm 121:1-2

 

When Was the Last Time You Held a Baby that Didn’t have a Parent?

My friend Chelsea Landis wrote on her blog recently about the time she spends with the infants and toddlers in the orphanage she lives in down in Port Au Prince, Haiti. It’s a convicting piece. Here’s what she wrote:

After a long day, the last thing I want to do is head to the baby and toddler room. The best word to describe it would be– insanity.  There are about 18 children in the nursery typically throwing toys or screaming for dlo (water).  It’s always been easier to go talk with the older children who don’t need their diaper changed.  However, lately I’ve been feeling like I should spend more time in the nursery than I do.  So I’ve been heading there after devotions in the evenings.

Tonight was like any other night but I found myself weepy as I listened to the chorus of babies and toddler’s crying, each one wanting attention but not enough nannies and missionaries to go around.

To read the rest, CLICK HERE

To learn more about Chelsea’s ministry, CLICK HERE.

To learn about New Life Children’s Home in Haiti, where Chelsea lives, CLICK HERE.

Happy Hallowed Day

Four hundred and ninety-five years ago yesterday, on October 31, 1517, Martin Luther nailed 95 statements of protest (known now as the 95 Theses) on the church door in Wittenburg, Germany. Luther deliberately chose October 31, the day before All Saints Day, because it was known as Hallowed Eve–the hallowed night before a hallowed day.

With Luther’s questions came a debate that ended up yielding perhaps the greatest spiritual movement of reform in our history–the Reformation. The fruit of the Reformation can be summed up in one word–grace. Through the courageous work and Luther and the other reformers we were reminded that salvation cannot be purchased at any price, and that the Church doesn’t have the authority to give and take salvation as it pleases.

The Reformation elevated the sacrificial work of Jesus to its appropriate place as the only means of salvation, the name of Jesus as the only hope for sinners, and the blood of Jesus as the most powerful force in the world.

If you are reading this today as a follower of Jesus, then you have been directed impacted by the revolution that Luther started nearly 500 years ago. As the Apostle Paul so aptly stated, “It is by grace you are saved, and that though faith–not the result of works–that no one should boast,” (see Ephesians 2:8). As one of the billion-plus followers of Jesus today, I am grateful that I don’t have to pay cash to a church, or jump through any religious hoops, or meet any human standard to know that I am secure before God.

I agree with the words of Edward Mote, penned around 1835–My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus’ blood and righteousness.

Happy Grace Day

Hurricane Sandy Relief

 

 

Want to help with Hurricane Sandy relief efforts? CLICK HERE

Are You with the King?

Are you following your King today? You’re following someone. Maybe you need to pause and remind yourself right now of who your King is. Consider this:

But Ittai replied to the king, “. . . . wherever my lord the king may be, whether it means life or death, there will your servant be.”  2 Samuel 15:21

In this story, things were rapidly caving in around King David. His son Absalom was leading a rebellion against him. He was forced to leave Jerusalem, fleeing like a criminal, to save his own life. Only those closest to David–friends, family and trusted associates–were leaving with him. All who did so would be considered enemies of the new king, Absalom. If they were caught with David, they would be killed immediately. You can read Ittai’s comment above and see his unbending loyalty to David.

Who was this dedicated man who was willing to die with his king? Was he a ranking general in David’s army? No. Was he a soldier who felt great loyalty to David? No. Was he one of David’s relatives? No. Was he someone who owed David a favor? No. Was he even an Israelite? No. The amazing part of this story is that Ittai and the 600 men who followed him were from Gath, a long-time enemy of Israel. David had spent some time in Gath while hiding from Saul. His reputation as a great warrior and a man of the true God had gotten around. Ittai and his men had only recently defected to Israel to follow David. They had literally only been in Jerusalem for 24 hours and had nothing to gain by staying with David. But they would not leave. Their respect for David as a leader, warrior and king had drawn them to him. They’d rather die with David than be counted with his enemies.

And therein is the point for us. In a true monarchy, loyalty runs deep. People don’t jump from one ruler to another. In a kingdom, the citizens live and die with the king.

Christianity is a monarchy. Our King is neither earthly nor temporal. He is the eternal Lord of the universe. He deserves our highest loyalties. And, unique to his kingdom, is the fact that the King has already laid down his life for his followers. What he asks in return is that they live for him. Yet, how quickly we abandon our King for the sake of a cheap thrill, a few extra dollars, or to gain someone’s acceptance. We often act as if he is no King at all, but really just a hired hand.

Are you with the King? Are you ready to go wherever he goes, whether it be life or death? Set your rights and will aside, pull up your tent stakes, pack your bags and follow the King. That’s the nature of the Kingdom.