Series: 365

29 – Honor Self

It is nearly impossible to behave with dignity if one does not honor oneself. Someone who finds it difficult to be kind to others—perhaps in frustrating circumstances more so—somehow lacks self-respect.

Why not throw your trash on the street if your life doesn’t matter anyway? Why care about cleaning the street in front of your house, its only you after all! …These are the presumptions—not just with streets, but all areas of life—for the person who doesn’t behave with dignity. Rarely do they even think this consciously; they don’t consider themselves important enough to.

Underachieving is an indication of lacking self-worth. Overachieving, likewise, indicates someone who feels the need to prove something. Few people target the right level of “a job well done” and move on to other important work when their work reaches the standard; only self-respect can give someone that kind of clear vision.

If you find yourself having trouble using the right manners  with other people or if you are sensitive to feelings of disrespect, then you probably need to consider the many good reasons you are worthy of respect yourself. Respecting yourself begins with seeing, recognizing, and believing that you yourself deserve respect. If you can’t find any reasons, consider that the Son of God died for you and would do it all over again. What more reason for self-worth is there? Respecting others, as Jesus does, helps you gain self-respect.

When you find others who behave as if they lack self-respect, simply honor them. Give them compliments on normal things. Avoid insulting them no matter how difficult it is. When people with low self-respect are habitually late for work, treat them like kings and queens who need aid and ask what you can do, even if you are their superior. “Fashionable lateness” shouldn’t bother you, but on the clock it indeed can be a problem. Offer to make their shift 15 minutes early and pay them for it. Tell them you value their work and only want to help. But, never jeer or get in the habit of degrading them.

Respect yourself in your heart and help others respect themselves in their hearts. Self-respect makes everything easier.

30 – Eternal Book of Life

Bible study raises questions, as does any lifelong study. If “only Jesus saves” then what about “good people” who don’t believe Jesus? If “predestination” and “foreknowledge” are part of God’s plan, then do we even have a free will? These questions are normal, thoughtful, and good.

The Apostle John saw the Book of Life in his vision recorded in the last book of the Bible, the Book of Revelation. In John’s Gospel, John makes it clearer than any other New Testament writer that we receive Jesus and his Eternal Life merely by believing in him—all because Jesus did the rest of the work at the Cross. But, John never mentions “believing” in the Book of Revelation. That’s because Revelation addresses a different topic, not from any disagreement.

Revelation records what John saw, that’s all. Among the many things John saw, he saw the Book of Life. Based on Revelation, a “Biblical” theology tells us only a few things about the Book of Life: It was written before Earth was made, it belongs to Jesus (the Lamb of God who was slain for our sin), it has the final say at the Great Judgment at the very end of all things, and people who take the “mark” of the End Times’ Antichrist, hailing and worshiping him, do not have their names written in the Book of Life. That’s what we know.

The Book of Life offers clarity and still has mystery. Believing Jesus grants Life, power, happiness, and the Holy Spirit’s dwelling in our bodies in this lifetime. But, believing Jesus also includes resurrection from the dead and reigning with Jesus for one thousand years—after the Antichrist and before the Great Judgment.

It’s theoretically possible that “good people” who somehow didn’t believe in Jesus could be saved from the Lake of Fire at the Great Judgment, but the Bible is silent about that; we just don’t know. If so, however, it would be because of the Book of Life. Though mysterious as some things must always be, whatever the answer to questions about justice, Eternity, Fire, and the Great Judgment, the Book of Life will have answers and it will all make perfect sense.

John 20:30-31, Romans 8:29–30, Revelation 13:8; 20

31 – Don’t Sell-Out

Your values, ethics, personal standards—the moral code by which you live your life—must never be for sale.

If you decide that you should improve your morals and standards, that may or may not be necessary, and that is a different discussion altogether. But, when the cost of keeping your moral code becomes high, you will discover whether you have a price tag on your forehead announcing for how much you can be purchased.

Keeping one’s moral code includes personal dignity, but not only. To sell-out ones morals is more than about dignity, it’s about the foundation of good judgment, wisdom, and the conscientious compass by which decisions are oriented.

There is something magical about holding to one’s ethical code. It solidifies behavior, reliability, methodology, and character. In some way, people will be able to predict your actions, which isn’t always preferable. But, in other, more important ways, keeping your moral code will make it impossible for corrupt people to ever understand you, let alone predict you.

If you stand for nothing, you’ll fall for anything. But, if you stand for something, someone else will come riding along in white night to bring you aid that wouldn’t have been possible had you not stayed and made your stand.

There was a tale of Christians escaping persecution from China’s secular government. Two Chinese policemen stopped them and asked if they were Christian. “Yes,” they said honestly. “Good,” the two policemen replied, “We’re coming with you and we will help you because we want to get out of here ourselves.”

When you know that you are not alone—that there are other people in the ecosystem of humanity—that you depend on others and that others depend on you—that what you do can have serious effect on others, for better or worse—you will more easily make your stand and keep your watch.

The big picture is vital, but with a moral code we only need to know that morals belong to the big picture. If you maintain a moral code from above and you keep that code, you don’t need to know the specific plans of others, yet you will help others without knowing.

32 – You Get What You See

Everything starts in the mind. Our plans, our goals, our directions—all we accomplish begins by what we envision in the  mind’s eye.

It’s impossible to climb over a wall that you have convinced yourself you can’t climb over.

Many people take this type of wisdom one of two wrong ways. Either they claim that we can truly climb over every wall in the universe merely by thinking we can or they claim that is what we are claiming. The problem here is practical: We can’t do whatever-the-heck we whimsically feel like, but we can’t do anything at all if we believe we can’t do anything at all.

There’s a lot more we can do than we give ourselves credit for. In all fairness, there’s also a lot we can’t do that we probably don’t know we can’t do. Pessimists especially think themselves “pragmatists”, but they also attempt things they don’t know they can’t do, such as trying to be happy by overspending, all while thinking they don’t need to learn healthy “success oriented” habits first.

Know your limits and your strengths; make neither artificial nor false. Don’t say you can’t when you can. Don’t say you can without getting your mind right first. And, for Heaven’s and Earth’s sakes both, please don’t decide that you can do what-the-heck-ever without proper preparation or with enough preparation. There are some things no one can do, but don’t overuse that truth.

Not all, but most of our problems come from some boundary we limit ourselves with. Don’t just work hard; also evaluate your progress to ensure you work smarter every day. We need both hard and smart work; each day is new.

Take time to educate and familiarize yourself with your goals. Consider that your goals might not be best, but the goals behind the goals behind the goals could point you in a better direction that you will be more happy with. Do your homework, then envision the path all the way to the end.

Watch your language, eradicate negative speech. What you say reinforces and rewrites what you think. Whatever you end up with—whatever you have even now—began with what you already saw.

Proverbs 23:7

33 – Rest & Sabbath

God commanded through Moses that we shall “remember” the Sabbath and keep it “holy” or “separate”.

God created the Sabbath day—Saturday, the seventh day of the week—as a day of rest. He Himself rested on this day after creating Earth. This set a precedent for Man, His Image, to rest.

Any day will do as long as you rest and remember God’s original Sabbath.

Rest is vital for any discipline. Proper rest is half of any training process. During times of rest, our bodies rebuild tired muscles—that’s when they actually become stronger.

Just as muscles need rest from exercise, our bodies need rest from labor and our minds need rest from work, especially creative arts and sciences. During rest, our bodies continue alternative forms of work and recovery, but something similar happens with our creative minds.

Our subconscious minds process our cognitive thoughts and deliver conclusions, but this happens only with things we aren’t actively thinking about. Time away from work leads to those “gut feelings” or “ahha!” moments where the solution to a problem suddenly snaps into mind. That’s because we never actually “stop thinking” about anything, we only “shift” between active and passive thinking—or conscious and subconscious thinking.

If you want inspiration, learn to shift your thoughts between active and passive. Prepare, understand, research, gather, toggle, get your bearings, and otherwise download as much data and experience into your active thinking while you work. Then, go play or think about something completely different. When you do, all that information will continue being processed elsewhere in your mind and whenever your mind finds a conclusion it will send you the results—just the results and only the results.

Nothing shifts thinking like a good, Biblical Sabbath day of rest. Any creative craftsman needs such a day. It’s not necessarily a day to roll around in bed all day, though that might not be a bad idea. The important part is to break your tiring daily routine. Whatever sums up the work of your week, take one day to rest from it and make sure you sleep well. A Biblical Sabbath makes the rest of your work ten times as effective.

Genesis 2:1-3, Exodus 16:22-30; 20:8-11, Mark 2:27-28, Romans 14:5-6, Hebrews 4:9-11

34 – The Least of These

Jesus said, “When you do it unto the least of these, you do it unto me.”

The world is full of people who only help people whom they think can help them in return. This is not godly thinking. In a worldview of Biblical morals, helping everyone is helping Jesus because Jesus died to help everyone.

With good Bible hermeneutics we know the Greek way of expression, just as we have sayings in English and any other language. Jesus did not mean, “only unto the least of these,” but the idea is, “even unto the least of these.” We know this for two easy reasons up front, in addition to familiarity with how people talk in the New Testament: First, it’s hard to prove in court that Jesus meant only, second, he didn’t define “least”. “Least of these” has a Greek grammar conundrum. In English we would say, “the lowest of people,” which is still undefined.

Jesus means that no matter who we help or don’t help, he sees all and no self-sacrificial deed goes unnoticed.

Some of the “least of these” includes very wealthy people whom the masses are rude toward. Never show favoritism to anyone, neither for being poor and underprivileged nor for being rich and overprivileged. Jesus died for all people and he wants you to help all people he died for.

In that process, love knows when to be “tough” and let people do their own work. There is dignity in doing things ourselves, not taking handouts, and working to right problems we made for others.

One of my high school teachers had printed on the wall, “Lack of preparation on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part.” That teacher’s wisdom helped a lot of students, all of them in fact.

Befriending the friendless includes giving harsh advice.

Doing what is right cannot possibly conflict, by definition. Whatever is good for others is always good for you and vice versa; if you think otherwise then you misunderstand justice.

Help all people, sometimes by not helping or not encouraging or not “positively” drawing attention to embarrassment. Don’t just dump money either. Actually help—across the board—all people.

Matthew 25:31-46

35 – Earth Will Be Full of the Knowledge of God

When Jesus reigns on Earth, whatever the truth is—whatever things our theology was right about or wrong—all people will know God truly, without need for anyone to teach them. That’s one of the main reasons life will be, in so many words, “Heaven,” except that it will be Heaven on Earth, literally.

Even in the ages after Earth, everyone will understand the structures and systems of society. There won’t be political divides because both the needs and the ways to meet those needs will be widely know to everyone. When society is full of knowledge about God, that changes everything.

We’re not there yet, thankfully.

Even without sin, society must slowly learn about God. We can’t just have God come down, open the skies above everyone’s house, and download all truth. That would reduce us to minions. We must study and learn, ponder and work, in order to understand God.

Once all human society is filled with that knowledge about God, it won’t be from any download; it will be from our experience and from having seen Jesus face-to-face and having real fellowship with those who have done the same.

Learning comes from our own choice to do so, even in the next life. For all Eternity, we will never stop learning and God will never run out of things for us to learn about Him. So, in this sense, part of experiencing “Heaven on Earth” even now—of entering into Eternal Life even during this current, brief life—includes being students of theology—students of the knowledge of God. This begins with fearing only Him and nothing else, loving Him more than anyone or anything else, and pondering clear truths about love and self-sacrifice for others, from the smallest to the greatest circumstances of our daily lives.

Everything in your life—everything—was allowed or introduced by God as part of helping you learn about life, yourself, others, and—central to all knowledge—learning about Him. Look for His reflections—His fingerprints—in the world around you. Knowledge of God, after all, will abound in Eternal Heaven, but it is just as relevant and accessible here, in the world right around us.