Adam and Eve

Life Perspective: diy or CWS?

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focus-37863944If you’re as big a fan of the game of baseball as I am, you probably think of the College World Series when you see the letters CWS.  Even Google associates CWS with the College World Series.  When I typed CWS into the search box, College World Series of Omaha appeared in the second spot.

Sorry baseball fans, but this morning CWS has a focus on Christ Who Strengthens.  CWS can be a comforting thought in a diy (Do It Yourself) world.

When I typed diy projects into Google, the search engine gave me 42,500,000 results.  The list included home decorating, cake decorating, decorating Easter eggs, recipes for cheesecake, and instructions for cheesy projects.

My problem with a diy project is that sometimes it looks like I did it—some guys have a PhD in hammerology, but I’m just a hack.

Some people are so self-sufficient, they try to approach their spiritual life with a diy mentality, and they look like:

  • Adam and Eve thought they were smarter than God.
  • Samson was blinded by his strength.
  • Peter was tripped by pride.
  • David’s morals were sucked down the drain of a bathtub.

Each of these men faltered and failed because their focus had become more diy and less CWS.  This principle is found in both Philippians 4:13 and Isaiah 40:29:

  • I can do all things through Christ Who Strengthens me—Phil. 4:13
  • He gives power to the weak, and to those who have no might He increases strength—Is. 40:29

Are you managing your life with a diy mindset or with a CWS perspective?

Death:  The Common Denominator

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your-destination_0In 2005, Stanford University asked Steve Jobs to give the commencement address. During his speech, he made an interesting comment about death:

No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don’t want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it.

I find it interesting that Jobs, the founder of Apple, made a comment about death which is an apple-associated event.  To be fair, no one knows what Adam and Eve actually ate, but people generally think of the apple when they think of the Garden’s forbidden fruit.

Steve Jobs was right; death is the destination we all share.  Like it or not, death is the train that carries it passengers to destination death.

When Paul discussed death, dying, and the resurrection, *he said we all die due to Adam’s disobedience and sin in the Garden, but through Jesus all of us can live again.

While Adam’s way is the Path of Death, the way of life is the Am-Track Way or the Am-Way of Jesus: I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.

When you get on board with Jesus, you experience the wonder of salvation, and its benefits:

  • You are justified by faith.
  • You have peace with God.
  • You have access to God.
  • You have a relationship based on the grace of God.
  • You can rejoice in hope of the glory of God.

When you consider your final destination, you should also, “Consider the kind of extravagant love the Father has lavished on us—He calls us children of God! It’s true; we are His beloved children. And in the same way the world didn’t recognize Him, the world does not recognize us either. My loved ones, we have been adopted into God’s family; and we are officially His children now. The full picture of our destiny is not yet clear, but we know this much: when Jesus appears, we will be like Him because we will see Him just as He is. All those who focus their hopes on Him and His coming seek to purify themselves just as He is pure (I John 1:1-3 ~The Voice).”

Death may be the common denominator, but Jesus is the uncommon Mediator, and He is the only way you should travel to your final destination.

*Read The Message for an interesting rendition of this passage of Scripture.