But regardless of your methods and motives, one universal reason that many (most) people don’t seem to share their faith very often or in meaningful ways is fear of rejection.
My friend and author Tim Chester shared this with a group of us and it forever changed my view of sin.
“Sinful acts always have their origin in some form of unbelief–behind every sin is a lie. The root of all our behavior and emotions is the heart, what it trusts and what it treasures. People are given over to sinful desires because ‘they exchanged the truth of God for a lie.”
My wife, Tina, and I were raised in pretty similar ways. If we had to name the style of parenting our parents often used we would call it “transactional”. Every desire or action–even our emotions–was connected to a certain requirement or response based on the “value” of what it was we desired. Or avoided. (more…)
Christianity is not about sin management and the Good News of the gospel is not just about your afterlife. Let me unpack this for you, stick with me, you’ll love this. [Get my latest free training on Gospel Fluency now.] (more…)
I’m glad you asked that Meg because I hear this a lot and I think it’s an important issue.
First, a little history about these personality types and how they differ.
Extraversion and Introversion are the preferences originally used in a personality inventory created by psychologist Carl Jung in the 1920s. Most people today may be more familiar with these terms in connection with the Myers-Briggs Type Inventory. These terms are unfortunately a bit outmoded, misunderstood and misused in that extraversion is not about being loud or the life of the party and introversion is not about being shy or anti-social. (more…)
Or they tell me that they don’t hang out with lost people, or allow their kids to, because they are trying to remain “holy” and don’t want to become polluted by the world. And to those objections I almost want to laugh and ask them if they have ever really read their Bibles or have you looked in a mirror recently?
Scripture and virtually all of history have shown us that if there is one thing we have most in common with every other human being, it’s our own sinful nature. Yet usually we let other’s sins define them and divide us, when in fact we are all sinners in need of a savior. We’re all dying, literally, and in need of rescue. We’re just alike. (more…)
