I was driving home the other night and it was pretty late. I noticed a U-Haul truck sitting outside the apartment building next to mine. I noticed a man who sat down on the back of the U-Haul truck looking discouraged and exhausted. I could really relate to him having just moved out east to New England from Chicago just six months ago. The whole process of moving is exhausting enough, but almost worse is the discouragement found from moving to a new part of the country where you know almost no one.

Sometimes it takes a lot of courage to just get out of bed every morning. It takes a lot out of you when your eyes open every morning visualizing everything you will have to face in the day ahead of you. I know someone right now is thinking that I’ve lost it and that only those who go to war or who jump out of airplanes need courage to face their day. But I think many jobs require courage and depending on personalities and where God has placed you, it might require courage for you to face what you do every day even if it’s just being a mother or a lay leader leading a Bible study every week at your Church.

Once Moses died and God assigned Joshua to lead the Israelites he encouraged Joshua three times to be strong and very courageous. “Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be terrified; do not be discouraged, for the LORD your God will be with you wherever you go.” (Joshua 1:9) Where is Joshua’s strength and courage supposed to be rooted in? Is his courage rooted in his own strength, his own abilities and his own skills? No. His strength and courage comes from the Lord, from the presence of God with Him. The presence of God brings encouragement. It’s not the same encouragement that comes from a good friend or significant other who can do little more than advice, comfort and support you. It’s the encouragement that comes knowing that the God who designed, built and sustains the universe is present with you. The same God who knows everyone’s thoughts and knows the hairs on their head, this same God who possesses limitless knowledge and endless mind capacity to do any number of things with that knowledge knows and cares about your problems.

The Apostle Paul seems to be someone with great courage and zeal and he writes, “I eagerly expect and hope that I will in no way be ashamed, but will have sufficient courage so that now as always Christ will be exalted in my body, whether by life or by death.” (Phil. 1:20) Paul is hoping that he will not be ashamed before God but wants the courage to live out a godly life on display for the entire world. He wants to boldly proclaim Jesus to everyone and will have the courage to be bold in his faith.

Think about the men of the Bible who needed courage to do what they had been called to do. Moses needed courage from God to face Pharaoh and lead the Israelites out of Egypt. Joshua needed courage from God to take over for Moses and to lead God’s people into the Promised Land. Jeremiah needed reassurance of God’s presence and courage from the Almighty to do the ministry of the prophet that he was called to. Daniel received strength and was told to take heart when speaking with a Man who might have been angel or Jesus Himself. Jesus told his disciples to take heart and to be of good cheer since He had overcome the world. The Apostle Paul prayed for boldness and prayed that he’d have courage to represent Christ well.

So wherever you find yourself, even if it is on the back of a U-Haul truck, take heart, be strong and courageous. For Jesus is with you will give you strength and will protect you and provide for your every need to get you through whatever your going through. Take courage in Christ today.

Every single morning you get up you get dressed. Most people spend a significant amount of time in front of the mirror every morning before going to school or work or to hang out with friends. You probably check yourself over before leaving your house every day to make sure you look good and there’s nothing wrong with what you’re wearing.

But do you consider what attitude you’re wearing when you leave your home every morning?

The Apostle Paul writes to the congregation of one of his churches, “You have taken off your old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator.” He’s saying that we (as Christians) have taken off the old self, our old ways, our old attitudes that we had when we were walking in sin and unbelief. He writes that as Christians we need to have put on our new selves—made in the likeness of our Creator (God). Do you see? He’s not just saying that we need to be good. Paul’s not just saying that we should choose to wear righteousness and goodness. He’s not just saying that we should be like God. He’s saying that we were designed to be like the one who made us, the one in whose image we’ve been created. Let’s look more like we’re originally made to look.

However, often we do not act in a way that reflects our intended design or our Maker. We can be selfish. We can be greedy. We can often be judgmental. Whether kids, teenagers or adults, you’ve probably seen just how judgmental Christians can be.

“My brothers, as believers in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ, don’t show favoritism. Suppose a man comes into your meeting wearing a gold ring and fine clothes, and a poor man in shabby clothes also comes in. If you show special attention to the man wearing fine clothes and say, ‘Here’s a good seat for you,’ but say to the poor man, ‘You stand there’ or ‘Sit on the floor by my feet,’ have you not discriminated among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts?” (James 2:1-4)

Do you realize that you’re being very judgmental when you exclude people, don’t talk to people or make them feel welcome at church? Are we aware that our cliques are sinful and that we’re showing favoritism which God deems as sinful?? God forgive me for being judgmental and showing favoritism.

You’ve probably heard before that pride is like the first, original sin. I think that part of the reason is that pride often shows itself as the root of many of our other sins. Wearing an attitude of pride appears in so many different forms.

“Young men, in the same way be submissive to those who are older. All of you, clothe yourselves with humility toward one another, because, ‘God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.’ Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time.” (1 Peter 5:5-6)

So what Peter is saying here is take off your pride and instead put on humbleness. What is humility? It’s having a right view of yourself. I know that as human I tend to think of myself as more important than I ought to. Humility is the ability to not be thinking about how amazing you are, how everyone else would just be better if they were more like you or even emulated the characteristics you have. Humility is the ability to not to be putting yourself down and talking about how lame you are but rather to not even be thinking about yourself. Humility frees us from self-loathing, self-loving and self-worry. Because when you grasp a proper view of yourself, all that time you spent worrying about how you look, how others perceive you, hoping others like you, wanting others to be impressed with you, wanting others to feel sorry for you or wanting others to just notice you is freed up to be invested in other people and genuinely listening to them and caring for them.

Humility before God allows you to bend your knee, say you were wrong and that you are sorry. Pride doesn’t bend a knee, it doesn’t admit wrong. But a true humble person is someone who has no problem stepping aside, no problem asking for forgiveness. There is not a person on this planet who probably couldn’t use a little more humility in their lives, helping them view God as big, themselves as small in perspective to who God is and be freed up to concentrate on others rather than themselves.

These are just a few attitudes we need to take off and a few we should put on instead. So when you’re racing out the door tomorrow worrying about whether or not you remembered to comb your hair and weather your shirt matches your shoes or if anyone will notice the hole in your jeans, don’t forget to think about what sort of an attitude you’re wearing…

“But there must be a real giving up of the self. You must throw it away ‘blindly’ so to speak…The very first step is to try to forget about self altogether. Your real, new self (which is Christ’s and also yours, and yours just because it is His) will not come as long as you are looking for it. It will come when you are looking for Him. Does that sound strange? The same principle holds, you know, for more everyday matters. Even in social life, you will never make a good impression on other people until you stop thinking about what sort of impression you are making. Even in literature and art, no man who bothers about originality will ever be original: whereas if you simply try to tell the truth (without caring twopence how often it has been told before) you will, nine times out of ten, become original without ever having noticed it. The principle runs through all life from top to bottom. Give up yourself and you will find your real self. Lose your life and you will save it. Submit to death, death of your ambitions and favourite wishes every day and death of your whole body in the end: submit with every fibre of your being and you will find eternal life. Keep back nothing. Nothing in you that has not died will ever be raised from the dead. Look for yourself, and you will find in the long run only hatred, loneliness, despair, rage, ruin, and decay. But look to Christ and you will find Him, and with Him everything else thrown in.”
C.S. Lewis (Mere Christianity)

“For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for Me will find it.” Matt. 16:24

Every single day we must wake up and allow Christ to kill the old man. The flesh must die. The old man must be killed, the desires that raise up within you that desire things of the old man must die. Let Christ kill the old man every time he rears his ugly head. The old man will look strangely familiar—he will look more like you and be more dear to you then anyone else you know. But if Christ is to grow the New Man within you that looks more like Jesus, then the old man must go. There is no use in keeping him around, he will only drag you down to hell. The old flesh must die. When you’re angry at your parents and want to snap back at them for their guilt trips BAM, let Christ kill the old you. When you’re furious, running late and someone just cut you off in traffic, BAM, let Jesus kill the old you. When you’re offered to smoke some weed and you want to fit in, BAM, let Jesus stab in the chest with his knife, the old you. When you’re tempted to go farther than you should with your girlfriend or boyfriend, BAM, let Christ knock the old you on your back and kill you. For only once you give every fiber and ounce of yourself to Jesus can He raise to life a new you, one that you will not quite recognize but that will look with every passing day that you allow Him to control you to look more like Him.

“The man who loves his life will lose it, while the man who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life.” John 12:25