People ruin their lives by their own stupidity, so why does God always get blamed?
~ Proverbs 19:3, THE MESSAGE

You must take personal responsibility. You cannot change the circumstances, the seasons, or the wind, but you can change yourself. That is something you have charge of.
~ Jim Roth

The best years of your life are the ones in which you decide your problems are your own. You do not blame your mother, the ecology, or the president. You realize that you control your own destiny.     
~ Albert Ellis

Action spring not from thought, but from a readiness for responsibility.   
~ Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Man must cease attributing his problems to his environment, and learn again to exercise his will – his personal responsibility.    
~ Albert Einstein

When you blame others, you give up your power to change. 
~ Anonymous

A sign of wisdom and maturity is when you come to terms with the realization that your decisions cause your rewards and consequences. You are responsible for your life, and your ultimate success depends on the choices you make.     
~ Denis Waitley

You are not responsible for the programming you picked up in childhood. However as an adult, you are one hundred percent responsible for fixing it.
~ Ken Keyes, Jr

Why was Stephen stoned? Because he was a man of faith, intent upon sharing the good news of God’s grace with others; because he stood his ground even though the message was not always popular; because he was bearing fruit for the Lord; because his opponents determined to silence this good man, and couldn’t do it in honest, open debate, and so sought to do so with lies, slander, and manipulation of public opinion. On the one hand, what a disgusting display of godlessness; on the other hand, what an enduring testimony of the beauty of a disciple devoted to Truth regardless of personal cost. What an example of godly determination in the face of ungodly abuse.

“Count yourselves blessed every time people put you down or throw you out or speak lies about you to discredit Me. What it means is that the truth is too close for comfort and they are uncomfortable. You can be glad when that happens – give a cheer, even! – for though they don’t like it I do. And all heaven applauds. And know that you are in good company. My prophets and witnesses have always gotten into this kind of trouble” (Matthew 5: 11-12, The Message)

(AL MAXEY)

One of the greatest mistakes ofthe church is to offer Jesus to people solely on the same basis that a salesman offers a product to consumers. Come to Jesus – He’ll save you from hell, fix your marriage, get your kid off drugs, heal your diseases, take away your depression, make you powerful in word and spirit, give you a good job and a nice house. Jesus certainly saves people from hell, and He can do all the other things too.

It’s not wrong to come to Jesus initially for what He can do for us. The problem is that many of us never progress beyond this stage. What if He doesn’t fix our marriage or get our kids off drugs? What if He lets us go bankrupt? If our primary interest in Jesus revolves around what He can do for us, than when He “fails” to meet enough of our perceived needs, we’ll leave Him or become embittered. Many of us in the church can’t seem to get past the stage of desiring Jesus for what He can do for us. We are so dazzled by Jesus’ ability to provide for us that we can’t see the loveliness of His Person. He is infinitely wonderful in Himself, worthy to be loved and adored even if He never does a single thing for us…

God makes it easy for us to reject Him because He wants us to choose Him for Himself alone. It is perhaps one of the universe’s greatest mysteries that the Son of God wants a friendship with us. He will not force Himself on us. We must choose Him for our friend and then pursue Him for the rest of our lives if we want that friendship to grow.

(Jack Deere, Surprised by the Voice of God )

Self-examination

Is a vital point

To a vital life.

I can choose to grow not;

I can choose to stagnate;

I can choose to ignore spiritual invitations.

But I am given many opportunities

To choose to look within

Before or after I point without.

My inventory, my daily reflection,

Is mine.

I don’t have to berate myself

Or listen to old, condemnatory voices,

Father God’s in my head.

My inventory.

My growth. My willingness. My perception of

What life has to offer

And my belief

That I am deserving.

My mistakes. My insights. My solutions.

Listening to inward promptings

And outward advice.

Open to both, wise to both,

Learning from both.

How much do I truly desire

And deeply yearn for

A new life

With no strings or preconditions attached?

How much desire do I really have

For transformation?

How much openness do I have

For growing on a daily basis?

The unexamined self

Is a self not really living.

(Steve Snyder)

Jesus steps into the Garden, and begins to pray.

Never has He felt so alone. What must be done, only He can do. An angel can’t do it. No angel has the power to break open hell’s gates. A man can’t do it. No man has the purity to destroy sin’s claim. No force on earth can face the force of evil and win – except God.

His humanity begged to be delivered from what His divinity could see. Jesus, the Carpenter, implores. Jesus, the Man, peers into the dark pit and begs, “Can’t there be another way?”

Did He know the answer before He asked the question? Did His human heart hope His heavenly Father had found another way? We don’t know. But we do know He asked to get out. We do know He begged for an exit. We do know there was a time when, if He could have, He would have turned His back on the whole mess and gone away.

But He couldn’t. He couldn’t because He saw you. Right there in the middle of a world that isn’t fair. He saw you betrayed by those you love. He saw you with a body that gets sick and a heart that grows weak. He saw you staring into the pit of your own failures.

He saw you in your Garden of Gethsemane – and He didn’t want you to be alone.

He wanted you to know that He has been there too. He knows what it’s like to be plotted against. He knows what it’s like to be torn between two desires. And, perhaps most of all, He knows what it’s like to beg God to change His mind and to hear God say so gently, but firmly, “No”.

For this is what God says to Jesus. And Jesus accepts the answer. An angel comes over the weary body of the Man in the Garden. As He stands, the anguish is gone from His eyes. His fist will clench no more. His heart will fight no more.

The battle is won. You may have thought it was won on Golgotha. It wasn’t. You may have thought the sign of victory is the empty tomb. It isn’t. The final battle was won in Gethsemane. And the sign of conquest is Jesus at peace in the olive trees.

For it was in the Garden that He made His decision. He would rather go to hell for you than go to heaven without you.

God never commits to talent. He commits to character. He is interested in what you’re becoming, not what you’re doing.

If you spend more time being busy at your talent at the cost of time spent in the presence of God, you actually put yourself more at a loss than gain.

God can do more with a less talented, inexperienced person who is sold out to Him, than He can with a more talented and well experienced person with little-to-no time in His presence.

God’s goal for you is to become more like Him in how you think, act and live. How you use your God-given talent after that will fall in line.

Luke 10:38-43, the well known story of Martha and Mary, teaches us that quiet time spent listening to the guidance of the Spirit of God is more needed and of more value than being busy and forsaking that time at His feet in order to crank out that next project.

In verse 40, Martha said, “Lord, doesn’t it bother you that my sister has left me to do all the work by myself? Tell her to come and help me!”

The Lord answered, “Martha, Martha! You are worried and upset about so many things, but only one thing is necessary. Mary has chosen what is best, and it will not be taken away from her.”