What Are You Passionate About?

Passion (from the Ancient Greek verb πάσχω (paskho) meaning to suffer) is a term applied to a very strong feeling about a person or thing. Passion is an intense emotion compelling feeling, enthusiasm, or desire for something.

The term is also often applied to a lively or eager interest in, or admiration for a proposal, cause, or activity or love - to a feeling of unusual excitement, enthusiasm or compelling emotion, a positive affinity or love, towards a subject, idea, person, or object.

The way we think and act are very important but emotions tend to be somewhat frowned upon. Extreme emotions are even considered dangerous because we are supposed to keep a level head and act thoughtfully and prayerfully but the same God who created our minds created emotions too.

They reflect the image of God in men and women of faith everywhere. Passion and a heart for God is the potent blend that will see mountains moved, souls saved and the kingdom of heaven growing on earth. We need to have a passion for God and the things of His kingdom because that’s what compels us to walk close to Him and want to do His will.

Passion is belief in motion.

Belief is essential to all Christs followers. Belief is the entry into relationship with God and it isn’t simply just a mind based agreement. Belief is the whole embrace of Christ in your life. Yet belief without passion is nothing.

Belief that doesn’t manifest in emotional expressions quickly shrinks and becomes dry, it becomes something pathetic really. Don’t get me wrong, the relationship with God doesn’t end but it doesn’t go anywhere either.

There is a part of our life with God that is intimate and hidden, the psalmist calls it the secret place.

Psalm 27:5, in the secret place of His tent He will hide me.

Psalm 31:20 you hide them in the secret place of your presence from the conspiracies of man, you keep them secretly in a shelter from the strife of tongues.

This is the place where the flame is kindled but if we keep it there it will suffocate.

When we fan that flame into a passionate fire your life with God becomes a Holy force to be reckoned with. And like a true fire, it gives of heat, it gives of light, it has the power to consume, to change and to transform its surroundings.

Do you know someone who is passionate about their football team? We all do. They wear the team colours even when their side is running rough, they go to all the home games and some of the away matches too, they get there early and are the last to leave. They know the whole team and all the stats and when they are at the game there’s no doubt who they are cheering for. Passionate.

Its how we are meant to be as Christians and in our ministries.

Passion is the freedom to let belief out of the closet of our minds where it can draw some fresh oxygen into its lungs and start living life. Passion by definition, moves beyond what is expected or what is considered normal. It draws attention to itself, perhaps for good, sometimes not, but it is never hidden. If we lack passion, we are ripping ourselves off from living a full life.

Passion without direction becomes a loose cannon and can cause more harm than good, so the greater the passion the greater the wisdom needed to harness this powerful expression to the building of God’s kingdom.

Our passion for seeing God’s kingdom grow will affect the way you worship, and it may look extreme…you might clap your hands and sing loudly and even move in time to the music…you might even raise your hands in the air in praise to Him…but it will be authentic. People will mock you for it and judge you. They’re the ones that have no passion. They’re the ones who believe with their mind but the fire has turned to cold coal.

Its ok to clap and dance in church. Its ok to boldly agree while the message is being delivered and say 'Amen!'. Its ok to sit in the gutter and talk to people. Can you imagine how much different church would be if we were half as keen as a proud football supporter?

Passion will affect the way you pray and serve….it will affect your friendships and relationships. Passion will release you to share your faith without any fear. I love giving my testimony to others. Give me the slightest chance and I’ll tell others about how Jesus changed my life.

That’s what passion does.

God wants us to be passionate about things. He wants it to be an empowering force that enhances our walk with Him. We don’t need to be ashamed of it. Never hold back your exuberance of your emotions toward God. But DO allow it to be grounded and directed by truth and wisdom.

I’ll guarantee that your passion for Christ will bring disapproval from people, even people in the church. But if it’s the authentic expression of your faith and your love for God, it will bring approval from God and it’s His opinion that counts.

It's important to remember too, that if you don’t have a whole hearted focus on something worthwhile, the little things will seem like the biggest inconveniences and you’ll get indignant and angry at the most insignificant things.

You’ll hear those types of people whinge about the air conditioning in church being too cold or the music being too loud or the kids being too noisy.

Friends… Please….Don’t be so short sighted.

Get some kingdom vision and fan the flame of Godly passion and you’ll soon become grateful that your nerve endings work properly and that you feel the air con in the first place. You’ll soon realise that it’s a beautiful blessing that we have parents who bring their children into a Godly environment every week.

We will stop complaining and getting angry about the menial things and start getting stirred up about things that matter.

After cyclone Yasi, I spent nearly 2 weeks doing recovery work with the people in Tully Heads who had absolutely nothing at all. I prayed with them and lived with them and fed them and slept in the same shelter as them.

If anyone had a right to be angry, it was them, but they weren’t. Bewildered, yes. Upset, of course, but the weren’t angry. They saw the bigger picture. They had their loved ones and they had their life.

So often, we get so self absorbed we forget about the things that really matter. Our selfish attitude has us do things we regret later. We use angry words, and we are hostile towards others for no other reason than they didn’t comply with the selfish standards we have set and expect others to meet to make us happy.

We are at this very moment as close to God as we really choose to be. True, there are times when we would like to know a deeper intimacy, but when it comes to the point, we aren’t prepared to pay the price involved to get closer to Him. We are more interested in work, or friends or anything else that is a little more enjoyable than getting on our knees and spending quality time with him.

The Message bible says (Matt 5:6) “ you’re blessed when you’ve worked up a good appetite for God. He’s food and drink in the best meal you’ll ever eat”.

Appetite is always an indicator of a healthy life. When a person loses their hunger for food it’s a glaring sign that the body is sick and needs healing. The same is true with our spiritual walk. Its like taking our spiritual temperature and checking our vital signs.

Do you yearn for time amongst other believers that are struggling? Do you desire to make a difference in the world today? Are you passionate about sharing the things God has been doing in you with others?

Of course no one is wide open and passionate all the time. It’s entirely normal for feelings to ebb and flow but its also important to know the average level of spiritual hunger that characterises your life. When feelings are low, your core beliefs allow you to hold true to your course and not get shipwrecked by destructive appetites, and so it should surprise us that this world of spiritual forces that we live in tries to lure us away from our passion with glittery substitutes.

There are plenty of things that seem to comfort our soul and bring us temporary pleasure but just like junk food, the satisfaction fades quickly and leaves a dull ache in its wake. On the other side of the coin, the pleasures of God bring lasting satisfaction that doesn’t disappoint or leave a bad aftertaste.


To be continued....

What Are You Fighting For?

At coming to the end of reading Acts and the two letters to the Corinthians, I realise something. I REALLY like Paul.

His life of faith was a passion for him. There is nothing conventional or dull or routine about the way he pursues God. I meet people all the time who want to reduce God to an argument, but for Paul it was risking his entire life in an act of love.

I also meet people who think being a Christian means being nice, and they disguise all the unlovely parts of their lives so that they appear to be smiling, polite and well adjusted.

For Paul, being a Christian meant plunging into confrontations and encounters that engaged his emotions and his thoughts in a great contest against evil and a great venture into holiness.

He was a warrior! He fought WITH the church, side by side against the enemies that came against it.

He fought AGAINST the church too, when people defected from Christ, but in the thick of those battles, he was always, in essence, still fighting FOR the church.

What is the overflow of your heart? Are you in a legitimate fight for something worthwhile or merely looking for a fight because you aren't really in one?

Mind Your 'P's' and 'Q's'

I was out with a group of friends this evening at a local park. We were planning an event that is taking place in a few short weeks. Some young men came to use the park in the cool of the evening and kick a football around. Those young men sure knew how to swear. In fact, they put combinations of swear words together that I'd never even thought of (and I've been a fisherman for over 15 years before my current line of work).

If our group had been staying longer, I would have had no problem confronting the men and challenging them to refine their language, but why is coarse language so offensive and should a gentleman ever swear?

As soon as humans developed language, they probably also learned how to swear. Swearing exists in most cultures and languages and is taboo in the vast majority of them. But men often seem incapable of removing swearwords from their vocabulary. Sure, swearing has its uses; it emphasises points and emotional expressions well, and it and can be used for comic or dramatic effect. Some studies have even shown that a swearword can physically reduce pain, like when you stub your toe. 

But since these uses are most effective in moderation, when did using a swearword in every other sentence become acceptable?

There are reasons these words are designated as taboo.These reasons haven’t changed, so here is a little reminder of why a gentleman shouldn't swear.

It's Immature.

Remember how when you were a teenager, swearing was an act of rebellion? It probably helped you fit in with the cool crowd, and was maybe even a crude attempt to impress girls. Newsflash: You aren’t a pimply adolescent any more. Swearing doesn’t make you more attractive to women, and it doesn’t make you look cool.

You’re a man now, and that should mean that swearing is off the agenda. Just because the “cool” guy in sales swears does not mean you should return to the playground and copy him. Are you a gentleman who knows his own mind or just a kid playing grown-up? Be a man and know that you don’t need to swear to be popular.

It makes you look stupid.

We can accept that a strategically used swearword can be effective, but frankly, if your default of communication is to rely on an expletive, you have a fundamental inability to express yourself well. Language is so rich, with such a diverse choice of words for any situation, that for every swear word you could use, there are probably hundreds of more appropriate words available. These can range from the elaborate to the very simple. Stop swearing and broaden your vocabulary. Besides, there are plenty of other ways you can make yourself look stupid.

Swearing is inconsiderate.

Why assume that everyone around you tolerates swearing? That is an inconsiderate and arrogant attitude. For all you know, the people around you could be deeply offended by the use of bad language, not to mention that it comes across as aggressive and intimidating. You wouldn’t make off-colour jokes in front of a lady or children, so why risk insulting people by swearing?

Take a moment to realize that not only could you seriously upset other people, but you could also make a bad name for yourself. At work, it can even be taken as harassment or bullying, which can have grave consequences.

You can't take it back.

Once you've let the genie out of the bottle, the damage is done. Swearing as an attempt to show off in front of a woman is ridiculous; it’s the equivalent of pulling a woman’s pigtails and running away. And, in general, people can form an impression of you that won’t shift. Swearing often earns you a bad reputation, and the damage it can do to relationships can be terminal.

These are but a few of the many reasons to mind what comes out of your mouth, because a gentleman would never run the risk of embarrassing himself or another.

There's Something in Your Eye!

"There are lot of people around who can't wait to tell you what you've done wrong, but there aren't many fathers willing to take the time and effort to help you grow up." 1 Corinthians 4:16 (MSG)

Oh! How quick we are to criticise! We still suffer the age old problem of trying to remove the splinter from our brothers eye while there is a log in our own.


Every day, we hear people offer 'advice' which isn't so much as constructive criticism.


Constructive criticism is meant to be the process of offering valid and well reasoned opinions about the work of others, usually involving both positive and negative comments, in a friendly manner rather than an oppositional one. When used properly in ministry work, this kind of criticism is meant to be a valuable 'tool' in raising and maintaining performance standards.


But we don't build up when we criticise. We tear down. We don't encourage, we are pointing the finger in blame and don't offer a helping hand to lift someone back up.


We live in a self help culture that really needs a father figure who doesn't criticise, who builds up instead of tearing down. We need our role models to offer guidance and not criticism. At the end of the day, criticism is a negative form of correction whether it's called constructive or not. Correction, on the other hand, can always include positive reinforcement when delivered non judgementally.


Who will stand up and help others grow up? Where are the father figures who will love unconditionally and offer firm reassurance, who will blaze a path for young men to follow?


Who will open their hearts and homes to the hurting, the down trodden and the broken?


Of course, correction is necessary when mistakes are made, but that correction can still be firm and loving: without criticism.


The world will criticise us enough. There are people in the church who will criticise us. Our biological families, our workmates will criticise us too.


Where are the fathers (those strong and established in their faith) and the real Men of Honour who are willing to take the time and effort to help the young in faith grow up?


You may say this dialogue is a criticism in itself. No.


Why?


I offer this as an encouragement while I assume this very role I have asked about.

Where Are All The Good Men?

How should men live their lives in a time when traditional manhood is not needed, and in many cases not even wanted or respected? Is there any reason to strive to live the manly code if it does not come with societal honor and reward, and if failure to do so carries no threat of shame? Is it possible to conceive a manhood that stays true to the past but also offers men a way to move forward?

Throwing out the old code of manhood was supposed to be liberating for men and women alike. Yet men’s suicide rates are sharply rising while their high school graduation rates are falling. Men increasingly wish to opt-out of contributing to society at all. They feel restless and adrift. And women have been left to wonder, “Where have all the good men gone?"

It's no surprise that an emphasis on manhood is currently very weak. Society doesn’t need most men to perform dirty, strenuous, dangerous jobs for which their propensity for risk-taking and their physical strength make them uniquely suited. Men are so seemingly unnecessary that we have even began speculating whether we might have reached “the end of all the good men.”

For individual men of certain disciplines, and I include myself here, this can still be a fantastic era for manhood. Adherence to the masculine code is no longer enforced, but we can still willingly choose to follow aspects of it. Not because someone else is making us, but because we find it helps us live a fulfilling, flourishing life. 

The manly tasks are even more satisfying when we intentionally seek them out and freely choose them ourselves.

We can choose to be menly men, to be gentlemen who cleave to those high moral standards of a bygone era and continue to encourage our piers that society still does long for Men of Honour.

Integrity

You’re a government employee and you hear of plans for a new shopping center and airport development. The price of property in the area is likely to increase sharply once public announcement is made. Should you tell your friend who owns property in the area and is planning to sell? Should you buy property yourself?

You’ve been really struggling in a class you need to pass. You studied hard for the exam, but still aren’t feeling confident about it. Your friend took the test earlier in the day and offers to tell you exactly what was on it. Should you let him?

Your ex-girlfriend comes into town and wants to have a casual, friendly lunch. Do you tell your wife?

What would you do in the above scenarios? How long would it take you to decide? Integrity is one of those abstract qualities that we all wish to possess, but often find difficult to apply when it comes to real situations and practical dilemmas. What will we do when faced with questions like those above?

The word integrity is related to the roots of words like “integrate”  and “entire.” In Spanish it is rendered “integro,” meaning whole. Integrity thus implies the state of being complete, undivided, intact, and unbroken. Integrity is really the bond that holds a man’s other virtues together; it is the mark of a man who has successfully integrated all good principles. His life is a unified whole.

Why Live with Integrity?

It’s Easier

It may not seem like it at first, but living with integrity is easier than living a deceitful life. While making unethical decisions is often easier in the short term, it eventually takes its toll. There’s no real happiness to be found in struggling to remember your lies, living in fear of getting caught, and not feeling like you truly earned your reward. It’s empty and stressful. Living with integrity brings wholeness and peace. Your conscience can rest easy, and you can look at yourself in the mirror with pride.

It Builds Trust

A man of integrity is a man others can count on. They know he will do what he says he will do. He is promoted at work because he can be trusted with greater responsibility. His wife knows that when he says he’s working late, he really is. His friends feel comfortable opening up to him and turning to him in times of crisis. When you choose to live with integrity, all of your relationships will be healthier, stronger, and more satisfying.

It Serves as a Basis for Value Judgments

The questions given above raise some sticky issues. Every day we are faced with similar dilemmas. A commitment to live a life of integrity allows you clarity when you have to make hard choices. You won’t be at war with yourself over which path to choose. Instead, you’ll experience the confidence that comes with having every aspect of your life knit together in a unity of purpose.

A Man of Honour is a man of integrity.

Living a life of integrity is a daily process that’s doesn’t end until your life does. Here are some ways to develop integrity:

Decide now, not later. Many men have not thought through their personal value system. They’re not sure who they are or what they stand for, and they wait until the breaking of a crisis to make their decision. At that point, it’s too late. Faced then with great pressure, you will be more prone to take the route which is easier in that moment. Decide now what you will and will not compromise on. Then, when faced with ethical choices, the decision will have already been made.

Quit the rationalizations. There’s always a million reasons to compromise your integrity. You hear them on the news every day as corporate bigwigs struggle to justify their fat bonus checks. You can always come up with justifications that seemingly make good sense and let you sleep better at night. But at the end of the day, when you place your rationalizations on a scale next to integrity, you’ll realize you sold out something priceless for a measly pittance. There’s nothing more valuable than your good name and the ability to look at yourself in the mirror each day with a clear conscience.

Don’t take the first step. When a great man falls from grace, we often wonder how he could have ever messed up so royally. The truth is that he didn’t wake up one day and decide to commit an egregious blunder. It started with a little fudging here, a tiny bit of lying there. From there he just kept on sliding down the slippery slope of compromise. Don’t compromise on the little things, and you won’t on the bigger ones.

Don’t justify the means for the end. This is probably the most popular rationalization for breaking with your integrity. In reality, the journey towards an accomplishment or decision is just as important as the destination itself. Even if you are richly rewarded at the end, if you cannot look back on the means used to get there with anything but shame, your victory will be hollow indeed.

Take personal responsibility for you life. At the heart of integrity is the ability to own up to the fact that you are in control of your life. You are responsible for both your successes and your failures. Nobody else but you.

3 Ways to Ensure Your Wife's Respect

Every human being on the planet yearns for respect, but especially men. For a man, respect is the lifeblood of our emotional stability, the air our lungs breathe, the milk on our Weetbix, the petrol in our internal-combustion engines. In other words, it's what makes us go.

Respect is sometimes demanded, enforced and argued about. Gangs and countries have gone to war, and men have died for lack of it, but when freely given, it means the most to us. For a wife, respect is given as an order from the apostle Paul in Ephesians 5:33, "let the wife see that she respects her husband.”. In other words, it's not enough to love him, to coddle him, to baby him, although those things are kind of nice sometimes (I'm not going to lie!), but it's most important that she respects him.

Dr. Emerson Eggerichs wrote in Love & Respect, that respect is like the air a man breathes, and being disrespected is like pinching off a man's oxygen hose so that he slowly dies a suffocating death. However, it says the same about love to a woman. A wife being commanded through Scripture to respect her husband can be a difficult pill to swallow if the husband is mean, irritable, critical and unloving.

Here are the three P's of loving our wives well so that she can respect us easily and without feeling like a traitor to her own heart:

Praise her. 

Too often, we as men think something and fail to say it. We dig into a home-cooked meal, walk past a manicured garden, put on clean clothes, cash a second paycheck, all the while thinking this is nice, but never saying it. "Honey, thank you for working to help provide for this family," "Honey, thank you for doing that yard work, the yard looks great," "Honey, this meal is fantastic. Thank you." Or how about “Woman! You are looking so fine, YOU make that dress look good!" Praise your wife ... daily. Praising her often is loving her well!

Promote her. 

Praising her is speaking well of her ... to her. Promoting her is speaking well of her to others. The first people to whom you should be speaking well of her, are your family. Your children should hear you speak lovingly and adoringly about your wife often. Your sons will learn how to treat their own wives from you. I know, scary thought, but true. Your daughters will learn how to be treated from you. Start early and praise her often. Proverbs 31 says that "her children rise up and call her blessed; Her husband also, and he praises her." If you want a Proverbs 31 virtuous wife, treat her like one. A man who promotes his wife in public earns respect. A man who discredits his wife in public earns contempt

Protect Her.

We are Human.  There are going to be times when your wife sins or falls short.  Cover her.  Don’t blab about her failure and don’t grind her failures in her face.  Cover her.  1 Peter 4:8 says this “Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins.”  To love your wife well means to cover her, just as your Pastor is your spiritual covering of the local church, Jesus is our spiritual covering before the Father over the complete church, you husband, are the covering of your family.

As men, we sometimes feel that our wives will respect us for the things we respect other men for, accomplishments, money, occupation, the toys we own or cars we drive.

The truth is, our wives respect us for how we treat them, so praise her, promote her and protect her and she in turn will respect you.

As always, may you love your wives well and be mighty Men of Honour who always chase after the heart of God.

The Belt of Truth

Lying is one of the oldest vices in the world—it made its debut in the first recorded conversation in history, in a famous conversation in the garden of Eden. 

Lying is the sacrifice of honour to create a wrong impression. Truth can stand alone, because it doesn't need a chaperone or escort. Lies, on the other hand, are cowardly, fearsome things that must travel in gangs. 

Lying is the partner and accomplice of all the other vices.

Truth is the oldest of all the virtues; it antedated man, it lived before there was man to perceive it or to accept it. It is the unchangeable, the constant. 

In speech, the man who makes Truth his watchword is careful in his words, he seeks to be accurate, neither understating nor over-coloring. 

He never states as a fact that of which he is not sure. What he says has the ring of sincerity, the hallmark of pure gold. If he praises you, you accept his statement as “net,” you do not have to work out what discount you ought to make to what he has said before you accept his judgment. 

His promise counts for something, you accept it as being as good as his bond, you know that no matter how much it may cost him to verify and fulfill his word by his deed, he will do it. 

His honesty is not policy. The man who is honest merely because it is “the best policy,” is not really honest, he is only political. Usually such a man would forsake his loyalty to truth and would work overtime for the devil—if he could get better terms.

One of the things we discussed at our Men of Honour group recently was truth. The importance of not just speaking the truth but seeking it out and making it as much a part of you as breathing and blinking, so that if someone where to ever speak badly about you behind your back, no one would believe them.

The Belt of Truth

"A final word: Be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. Put on all of God’s armor so that you will be able to stand firm against all strategies of the devil. For we are not fighting against flesh-and-blood enemies, but against evil rulers and authorities of the unseen world, against mighty powers in this dark world, and against evil spirits in the heavenly places. Therefore, put on every piece of God’s armor so you will be able to resist the enemy in the time of evil. Then after the battle you will still be standing firm. Stand your ground, putting on the belt of truth and the body armor of God’s righteousness. For shoes, put on the peace that comes from the Good News so that you will be fully prepared. In addition to all of these, hold up the shield of faith to stop the fiery arrows of the devil. Put on salvation as your helmet, and take the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. Pray in the Spirit at all times and on every occasion. Stay alert and be persistent in your prayers for all believers everywhere." (Ephesians 6:10-18 NLT)

The first piece of armor Paul mentions in Ephesians 6:14 is "the belt of truth" (New Living Translation). What purpose did the belt serve for a Roman soldier? What purpose does the belt of truth serve for us?

The guys from Mythbusters interviewed Deputy Shawn Osborne, whose standard-issue belt buckle deflected a bullet at close range, saving his life. In spite of a big bruise, Deputy Osborne knew he was "very lucky."

Belt buckles are not designed to stop bullets. But there was a time when belts were an important part of defensive armour.

When the apostle Paul describes the armor of God, he is talking about more than a simple set of helpful tips. He is talking about the indestructible defenses of the Almighty God. These are the keys to withstanding the repetitive attacks and onslaughts of the evil forces that stand against us. They are ultimate and infinitely powerful tools available to us as Christians.

And he chooses to begin describing that set of armor by talking about...a belt?

Why, of all things, a belt? He could have started with the mighty sword of the Spirit, the towering shield of faith, the shining breastplate of righteousness—anything but some measly old belt. But he didn't. So that begs the question—why?

What was the belt used for in the Roman army?

The belt played a crucial role in the effectiveness of a soldier's armor. It was the belt that held the scabbard, without it, there would be no place to put a sword. Imagine an overzealous soldier, fired up and charging out into battle—but without his belt, and in turn, without a weapon! Not the makings of an epic battle for THAT guy!

In addition, from the belt "hung strips of leather to protect the lower body." The belt "girds on [secures] all the other pieces of our armor." Truth should cleave to us as a belt cleaves to our body.

What is truth?

Jesus, praying to the Father, gives a clear and straightforward definition of truth: God's Word. John 17:17 Sanctify them by Your truth. Your word is truth.

The Holy Scripture was given by inspiration of God (2 Timothy 3:16). The Greek expression translated "inspiration of God" literally means "God-breathed"! He actively and fully inspired the Bible to reveal His truth to us.

His promises, His commands, His word—they are all truth, plain and simple. After all, "The LORD of hosts has purposed, and who will annul it? His hand is stretched out, and who will turn it back?" (Isaiah 14:27). If God says something, there is no force that can stop Him from doing it—we can rest assured that it will be done.

What does truth have to do with a belt?

1 Thessalonians 5:21

Test all things; hold fast what is good.

Let me share some biblical history.

The Bereans were residents of the city of Berea in the New Testament. Paul and Silas preached to them during Paul’s second missionary journey. The account of Paul and Silas in this location is recorded in Acts 17:10-15. It reads,

"The brothers immediately sent Paul and Silas away by night to Berea, and when they arrived they went into the Jewish synagogue. Now these Jews were more noble than those in Thessalonica; they received the word with all eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see if these things were so. Many of them therefore believed, with not a few Greek women of high standing as well as men. But when the Jews from Thessalonica learned that the word of God was proclaimed by Paul at Berea also, they came there too, agitating and stirring up the crowds. Then the brothers immediately sent Paul off on his way to the sea, but Silas and Timothy remained there. Those who conducted Paul brought him as far as Athens, and after receiving a command for Silas and Timothy to come to him as soon as possible, they departed."

These Bereans exhibited several positive characteristics that marked their response to the gospel message. First and foremost, the Bereans were “more noble” because of their willing reception of the Word of God. Unlike the unbelieving Thessalonian Jews, these hearers were eager to hear the teaching of Paul and Silas.

Second, the Bereans examined what they heard by comparing it to the Old Testament Scriptures. The fact that they honestly listened and conducted further personal research led many Bereans to faith in Jesus as the Messiah. This expansion of Christianity was not limited to those within the synagogue, but also extended to many Greek men and women in Berea.

Third, the Bereans guarded Paul’s safety. When Paul’s enemies arrived from nearby Thessalonica, the Berean believers protected Paul by getting him out of the region. They did not turn him over to his enemies or disassociate from him as the Jews from Thessalonica might have expected.

Fourth, the Bereans continued to grow in their faith. After Paul’s departure, Silas and Timothy remained in Berea. Why? The Bible does not explicitly say, but one reason was probably to give the Berean Christians a chance to obtain further instruction in the Christian faith.

Later in the book of Acts, we are given further insight into the faithfulness of at least one Berean man. When Paul decides to return for additional ministry in Macedonia despite the tremendous persecution he had recently faced, one of the men who chose to accompany him was from Berea: “There he spent three months, and when a plot was made against him by the Jews as he was about to set sail for Syria, he decided to return through Macedonia. Sopater the Berean, son of Pyrrhus, accompanied him” (Acts 20:3-4). Sopater, likely a Gentile Christian, continued to assist Paul (and Timothy) in ministry long after Paul’s first visit to Berea.

In short, the Bereans have long been seen as a positive example of how a person or community should respond to biblical teaching. We are called to eagerly learn from God’s Word and, no matter who the teacher is, to investigate new teaching in comparison with the Bible. The practice of the ancient Bereans is a model for all who desire to grow spiritually today.

As Christians, we are to test all things and then hold on only to that which is good—the truth—discarding all else. We are to be like the Bereans who "searched the Scriptures daily to find out whether these things were so" (Acts 17:11). If we are not convinced that our principles and beliefs are without exception 100 percent true, how can we expect to accomplish anything?

Proverbs 3:3-4

Let not mercy and truth forsake you; bind them around your neck, write them on the tablet of your heart, and so find favor and high esteem in the sight of God and man.

A belt encompasses the waist. Does our conviction to the truth encompass us? As the last scripture notes, truth must be bound around us and written on our hearts—our conviction must reach beyond an outward show.

The belt used in Roman armor, as we have just discussed, provided a place for the soldier's sword. Our sword—the sword of the Spirit—likewise needs a sheath. Truth is vital because, like a Roman soldier's belt, it allows us to carry the sword of the Spirit and use it effectively.

What other lessons can we learn from the biblical analogy of having our waist "girded" by a belt?

Luke 12:35-37

Let your waist be girded and your lamps burning; and you yourselves be like men who wait for their master, when he will return from the wedding, that when he comes and knocks they may open to him immediately. Blessed are those servants whom the master, when he comes, will find watching. Assuredly, I say to you that he will gird himself and have them sit down to eat, and will come and serve them.

Christ told us to always be watching and ready for His return.

1 Peter 1:13

Therefore gird up the loins of your mind, be sober, and rest your hope fully upon the grace that is to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ...

Peter used an interesting analogy: "Gird up the loins of your mind." This implies tucking in long garments to be ready to move quickly. The New International Version translates it as "prepare your minds for action."

What are the dangers of not wearing the belt?

Romans 12:2

And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.

The world we live in teaches that truth is what we make it—that good and bad are relative and that there are no absolutes, only equally valid opinions. But the Bible teaches that truth is God's Word—that good and bad are defined by Him and that there are eternal and unchangeable absolutes, uninfluenced by opinions.

Paul wrote to the Romans telling them to "not be conformed to this world." Part of that means not buying into a system of belief that says absolute truth is a myth. As Christians, we know both that there is truth and that it is absolute.

2 Timothy 2:15

Be diligent to present yourself approved to God, a worker who does not need to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.

Imagine a belt with a segment missing. No matter how tiny the sliver that isn't there, the belt is still useless. To do its job, it must be one continuous, unbroken piece.

Now imagine living a way of life you don't completely agree with. Maybe it doesn't seem like a big deal—after all, what are a couple minor points that you're not sure about?

To try to live God's way without total belief in its validity is like trying to hold your sword up with a belt that isn't continuous. Neither will work. Our trust in God and His Word must be solid, without break, or else we will quickly find ourselves without a weapon. No matter how effective the rest of our armor is, we are useless without our sword. We need to be rightly dividing the word of truth—knowing what we believe, and why.

So - how secure is your belt?