written by Stephan Joubert
God dreams and He dreams big. He dreams about a new world, one where his will prevails. He dreams about a society where hate comes second, and injustice loses. He dreams about poor people having enough food to eat and about the lonely ones being cared for. He dreams about people who live together safely and in love for one another. He dreams about his kingdom spreading across the earth like a runaway bushfire, and billions of people bowing before Jesus. He dreams of people who discover this treasure in a field, like Jesus tells in Matthew 13, and leave everything to get their hands on it.
God dreams new dreams. And the good news — you have a place in God’s dreams. He noticed you when He dreamed big about people and his creation. He wants to use you to make his dreams reality. You should report for duty at once. He’ll take care of the rest. The Lord will use you by causing streams of living water to flow through you. He’ll use you to touch the lives of those around you. He will give his dreams wings in your life. So, what are you waiting for?
written by Stephan Joubert
The recent earthquake in Haiti leaves one at a complete loss for words. How terrible isn’t it be to be dumped into such despair in one fleeting instant. Still, it is captivating to see how governments, aid organizations, and churches from across the globe opens their hearts and their hands with acts of assistance. Our world is truly flat. We are all interrelated even though we live on separate continents and islands. That’s why we can’t look away when people elsewhere on earth are hurting. That counts from Zimbabwe to Haiti. We should pray together when tragedies of nature strike elsewhere. We should stand up when injustice is victorious in neighboring countries. Each of us should do what we can in the Name of God. We need to pray, talk, protest, give… or report somewhere for duty.
written by Stephan Joubert
A recent study by a British television channel, Channel 4, about what the average Briton’s ‘life footpint’ looks like, pointed out that the average person in her lifetime: uses up 3.5 washing machines, drives 8 cars, uses up 15 computers, receives 628 Christmas presents, uses 135,960 liters of fuel, knows 1,700 people, produces 750 tons of CO2, reads 532 books, reads 2,455 papers (equivalent to 24 trees that needed to be felled), and cries 61 liters of tears!
What does your life footprint look like? What are you spending most of your time and energy on? What role does possessions play in your life? And that of your family and friends? Is your Sunday-language — that you love God — only restricted to Sundays? Do your footprints during the week ever leave a trail leading to those who are in need? Are the friends of Jesus — the poor, the outcasts, and the lost — your friends too? Does your faith cause your footprint to look any different than what it previously did?
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written by Stephan Joubert
In one moment even the most stormy sea can become calm. In the blink of an eye huge storms can abate. The same can happen in your life. Chaos can instantaneously make room for reason. Noise can be replaced by soft silence in an instant. Unrest can be chased away by heavenly peace. How? Just realize afresh that the Lord is God. He alone! Believe the Word that the Lord is with you in the storm. Believe the Word that He is the Hiding-place in danger.
Subside. Calm down. Come to rest. Let your heart become still and calm. Let your turbulent mood find a hiding place at the Lord’s feet. Look up. Notice the Lord, high over nations and far above the dead gods of this world. See Him in faith. Bow gently before Him in the beautiful Name of Jesus. Kneel in deep worship. Know anew that the Lord is the Almighty. He has power in his hands. He alone is Lord, only He. He is your only Hope, He is the only Savior. Notice Him, and come to rest in his presence. Look up to Him and experience his heavenly peace.
written by Stephan Joubert
Life should be about a challenge or a mission so big that it fills us with constant new energy, passion and hope. We should be hijacked by a grace quest. Do you know that song from the Musical and the Film: Man of La Mancha, The impossible dream? The lyrics (by Joe Darion), that deal with a quest, are amazing. In this song, Don Quixote explains his own quest and the reasons behind it:
The Impossible Dream
This is my quest, to follow that star …
No matter how hopeless, no matter how far …
To fight for the right, without question or pause …
To be willing to march into Hell, for a Heavenly cause …
And I know if I’ll only be true, to this glorious quest,
That my heart will lie peaceful and calm,
when I’m laid to my rest …
And the world will be better for this:
That one man, scorned and covered with scars,
Still strove, with his last ounce of courage,
To reach … the unreachable star …
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written by Stephan Joubert
You’re only as good as your last move on the chess board of life. Rugby players are assessed on Mondays based on their game the previous Saturday. Preachers are evaluated based on their last sermon. A writer’s most-recent book determines his success. Ditto for an actor’s performance in his latest movie. This is not the way things should be. We should give each other more chances than just the last thing we did. The latest controversial thing someone did should never overshadow all the good things that he or she has done, especially not between friends.
We can’t live with such short-term memories when it comes to the integrity of others. We shouldn’t dare write each other off or move each other aside based on something that didn’t impress us. The Lord’s love causes us to always start over and afresh with each other. We should believe and expect the best of each other as 1 Corinthians 13 teaches.
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written by Stephan Joubert
You’re not a victim of your emotions. You can live thankful every day. You can have an “attitude of gratitude” lifestyle. How? Well, here’s a few pointers:
a. Choose to live every day proactively in the Lord’s good name, never reactively. Refuse to constantly react to everyone and everything. You don’t have to have an opinion about everything under the sun.
b. Don’t get dysfunctionally attached to strangers. Don’t allow bad drivers or criminals to fill you with anger. Detach yourself emotionally from negative people. Don’t allow them to pull you down to their negative level.
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written by Stephan Joubert
“We must be witnesses for the Lord.” How many times have you heard that? Indeed, but for some people it means that they have the right to give a monologue about their faith whenever it suits them. But what if such “testimonies” mostly do more harm than good? Can believers continually get away with excuses that one has to suffer for the Lord when others take them on about their rude and insensitive “testimonies”? If, on one side, it is true that we have to give testimony of our faith, then it is also true on the other side that we have to give testimony of all the wrong ways in which we are witnesses to the Lord. Jesus taught us to be careful and wise. We don’t automatically occupy the moral high-ground in every conversation. We need to earn the right to be heard through our discerning way of life before God and others.
written by Stephan Joubert
When we are challenged by new ideas, opinions or ways of seeing the world, we often give up current beliefs and learn new ones. Obviously, unlearning is very difficult — otherwise the world would have been a totally different place! It requires the realization that our mental models are deficient or in need of serious updating. Then we have to change or adjust them, which, in turn, implies dismantling our present world and replacing it with a new one. We now have to make sense of a confusing array of new information, impulses and objects. Through a process of continuous learning, new mental models are built inside us to make sense of our world in a fresh new way! But unlearning is critical in this regard. “If we don’t learn to deconstruct the models that shape our worlds, we may have a very difficult time in creating new ones. The old worlds will keep coming back to haunt us.” (Jerry Wind & Colin Crook, 2006. The Power of Impossible Thinking. Transform the Business of your Life and the Life of your Business, Wharton, p. 162).
In order to relearn to live a life saturated in God’s grace, we need a quest. We need a new way of doing life in a grace-based relationship with God and others that will provide ultimate purpose, direction and passion in our lives.
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written by Stephan Joubert
Followers of Jesus aren’t automatically the happiest people in the world. The same applies to those of other religions. The happiest people on earth are apparently those of Iceland, followed closely by Denmark — that is if you believe the research of the World Database of Happiness in any case. According to research among 144 of the world’s nations, the most unhappy people at present are those in Tanzania, followed by the citizens of Zimbabwe. The happiness of South Africans is ranked somewhere between number 61 and 65 on this happiness-list.
Happiness has to do with quality of life for most people. The problem with this area-based understanding of happiness is that the very happiness can disappear like an early-morning mist as soon as outer circumstances change. Just observe what happened in many first-world countries after the economic collapse that started in 2008. Many people’s happiness was blown away through the back door in an instant.
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