Live According to Positive Convictions

Here are the margin notes I was inspired to write down while listening to Teacher Jeong's message on Sunday... 

The topic was about not just listening to God, but living according to what you've listened to. Of course, this is a message that everyone needs to hear no matter if they are spiritual/religious or not. 

Too many people live in contradiction to their own convictions. That is, they think a certain way about an issue, but will quickly jettison their own conviction or sharply contradict it on another issue. As such their beliefs and lifestyle don't match up. Society becomes desperate when issues that affect the whole become carved into (seemingly) disparate parts (when they're actually not). 

Imagine a city (like, say, New Orleans) being flooded with water (representing a social stress on a civilization, like, say, rapid moral decay). At first, the residents can apply a common conviction for their survival to one common end: plug the one leak (that is, repent/change behavior/live righteously). But, some will disagree with that strategy, right? Problem is, its not like they get all time they need to think it through--the deluge of water just keeps coming.  Soon their opportunity to act on their common convictions will expire (because the water will be at their doorstep).

Over time neighborhoods/communities become small islands unto themselves. The situation is now worse because each household must apply a modified philosophy for survival: sandbag a perimeter around the house. 

So, now instead of a common solution conceptualized from the whole of the people/city, small pockets of special interest (each household) must mitigate their concerns (the floodwaters) at the expense of their neighbors. They become desperate, and their self-interest becomes extremely narrow, no longer for the survival of their city, or community, or family... but only for themselves. And by that point, who will blame them? 

I lack the time to thoroughly explain this for you, but essentially what Teacher Jeong is getting at is that people need to actually live out their common convictions in actionable ways, or else (as I've tried to explain) those convictions become splintered and society is imperiled. 

He used Psalms 28 to illustrate this. I was inspired to read this passage in The Message, in particular verses 3, 4 and 5 stood out to me:

Don't shove me into
the same jail cell with those crooks,
With those who are
full-time employees of evil.
They talk a good line of "peace,"
then moonlight for the Devil.

Pay them back for what they've done,
for how bad they've been.
Pay them back for their long hours
in the Devil's workshop;
Then cap it with a huge bonus.

Because they have no idea how God works
or what he is up to,
God will smash them to smithereens
and walk away from the ruins.

The language sounds aggressive, and well should it. The interesting part is that God really has no need to smash anyone--civilization is quite adept at doing that to itself. But the truly lamentable thing here is that injustice is chief among the ailments of the ignorant; I mean, if you don't "know," how can you ever judge correctly? Some of you might know where I'm going with this, but time is short, and there are other websites for that topic.

Teacher Jeong made three key points: 1) Think about God by involving Him in your everyday life. 2) Keep a positive mentality. 3) Acknowledge God in front of others when it counts and He'll acknowledge you when it counts. 

A word on point number two. Teacher Jeong used the illustration of the Israelites failing to enter the land of Canaan due to the negative report of the spies sent in beforehand. If recall, this negativity was the cause of 40 years of wandering in the wilderness. 

Its explained to us through the Bible that God prevented them from entering. When we look beyond the surface level and bring this story from the page into real life something should stand out: how did God prevent them? 

Did He cause their GPS to run out batteries? Did He cause them to mistakenly keep taking the same wrong 'short-cut'? I'm kidding, but I think you get my point. God didn't prevent them, in the literal sense; their negativity prevented them. For 40 years the wandered until the entire generation had died out--why? Because that generation's negativity lead them to sincerely believe they could NOT (that is, were entirely UNable to) enter the Promised Land. 

When you think about it in realistic terms, isn't it that much more frightening? How often are we prevented entering our Promised land because of our mentalities of negativity?  

A final word that will drive this point home: Tarahumara. The Tarahumara are an indigenous people group of the Sierra Madre famous for their long-distance running ability. They developed the ability through hunting, in which they would often chase deer upwards of 160 miles. In the late 90's several Tarahumara dominated ultra long-distance marathons, despite stopping for several beers and un-filtered cigarettes along the way. 

The point is this: physically speaking, the Tarahumara should be horrible long-distance runners. But mentally speaking, a 160 mile run is achievable for them.

Is entering the Promised Land acheivable for you? If so, rather than isolated to only one or two special areas of interest, is your conviction lived out in actionable ways across the broad spectrum of your entire life?