Hello everyone,
I just wanted to let everyone know The Beginning of Wisdom has moved to a new home with a new look. Check it out at justinjantz.com and subscribe to get my blog updates via email. Thank you for keeping up with my blog and I hope you continue to stay connected and continue to let me know what you think. I also have a new email if you have any questions or comments, justin@justinjantz.com. See you guys there.
Justin
How can we not see what God is doing?
How can we not feel God’s love?
How can we not encounter the grace of God every morning?
How can we not rejoice when we see God’s beauty around us?
How can we not realize that we are apart of something so much bigger than ourselves?
How can we not be so consumed by the Spirit of God that we only focus on Him?
How can we not worship God with everything we are when He has made us everything we are?
How can we not want a relationship with the greatest artist of all time?
How can we not be amazed that the God of all creation took the time to form us, to create us, to love us, sent His son to die for us?
How can we not realize how unworthy we are of all of that?
There are some who have never encountered the love that God freely gives. We need to realize that God is longing, He is yearning to just be with us. Christ died for us to have a direct relationship with God. So how can we not pursue that same relationship?
We consume ourselves with everything around us when we should be consumed by the Spirit of God inside of us.
Let God consume you with His never ending, never failing, never leaving love.
How can we not be so consumed with the love of God that the people around us can’t help but believe in Him?
We lose track.
We lose track of time, we lose track of people, we lose track of life, we lose track of God. We get so caught up in ourselves and what we have going on, we miss what God has blessed us with.
Short and sweet version: We need to stop worrying about everything that is wrong with everything else and focus on everything that is right about everything God is doing in us and through us.
Not as short, but still sweet version: We put so much focus on fixing what is wrong around us and we miss everything that is right. I can say this because I constantly catch myself doing it. I have found I am focused more on what God has blessed me with rather than focusing on the God that blessed me to begin with.We lose track of how great God is, everything He is constantly blessing us with. If we took more time to realize how much we don’t deserve God’s love but how graciously He gives it, we would be better for it.
Be better for it.
Most people tend to be ok with the thing that “looks” good. Most people tend to go after what they think they want, instead of what God says they need. People have let society tell them what it thinks they need. People lose sight of what is around them because they are focused on themselves.
We forget that God has the last word. We need to, especially in America, become more aware of what God is saying. We need to stop living to build up ourselves, build up our church, build up our denomination, build up our religion, and build up the Kingdom of God. We are losing sight of the big picture. We, not God, are making the picture of life smaller and smaller. Many have acquired the mentality that life is about making their name known, making money in their name, doing things for themselves. We need to regain the mentality that everything we do is about God and His purpose for us. We need to see life, people, events, everything the way God intended for us to see them.
New Living Translation (NLT)
16 We can make our own plans,
but the Lord gives the right answer.
2 People may be pure in their own eyes,
but the Lord examines their motives.
3 Commit your actions to the Lord,
and your plans will succeed.
4 The Lord has made everything for his own purposes,
even the wicked for a day of disaster.
5 The Lord detests the proud;
they will surely be punished.
6 Unfailing love and faithfulness make atonement for sin.
By fearing the Lord, people avoid evil.
7 When people’s lives please the Lord,
even their enemies are at peace with them.
8 Better to have little, with godliness,
than to be rich and dishonest.
9 We can make our plans,
but the Lord determines our steps.
I love thanksgiving. I get to eat awesome food all day, sleep in between, and watch football, spend time with family and friends. What’s not to love?
Take advantage of the time God has given you with the people He has given you.
Happy Thanksgiving!
-Justin
First off I want to start off by thanking an amazing family friend, Katie Reine, who yesterday took Lauren and I’s engagement pictures. Look for kvrphotography on Facebook and #kvrphotography on Instagram. She’s pretty awesome.
So I have never been one to like taking pictures. I usually take one and then I’m done. Yesterday was a little differenent. I think it was because I realized the person I was taking them with was the very person God thought of when I was formed. We take what God does for granted so often. We look at circumstances as just that, circumstancial. When infact the things God has laid in front of us are precise and accurate.
We schew the things God intended us to see becasuse our vision is bad, not God’s. We forget the perfection God offers us. We need to stop blaming God for what we can’t see going on around us, and thank Him for what we do see. It all changes when we change our perspective. When we take on a godly view of this life, it looks different then our own. When we stop taking the little things for granted, and see them blessings, we begin to love our lives again.
Look for the beauty that is all around you, and begin to love the life you’re living.
STOP DREAMING SMALL.
What are we doing dreamming small? What are we doing not dreaming at all?
We are becoming a society of lost dreamers, where few dream anymore, and most wait for the dreamers to tell them what to do, where to go , who to be. There are more people losing thier dreams every day. In turn, there are less and less dreamers.
We lose our dreams in this world. The world looks down on us, and we let it. We let this world push us around and tell us what we should and shouldn’t do, that a piece of paper, called a degree, that we pay thousands for will get us that “dream job” that we slave for. But for what? Money? We let the world and society tell us that we have to look and act a certain way to get where we want to go.
As christians, and christian churches, we dream to grow OUR church.
Here are some problems with that.
1. It is not our church to begin with, it’s God’s.
2. It is small scale thinking.
Instead of trying to grow our own personal churches, which aren’t ours to begin with, why are we not dreaming of growing the Kingdom?
Start dreaming, not about just growing the church, but about changing lives.
Check back in tomorrow for : Why Aren’t You Dreaming Big?
In a lot of what I write, I don’t want you to think I am writing to cast my judgement on things I’ve noticed. I hope you know that is not my intention what so ever. My intention is to get you to think about the way you live your life, the way you walk this earth, and and way you interact with the people around you. My intention is to get you to think about the way God is using you and working in your life.
Ok now the good stuff…
Why have we been overthinking the way we live our lives? We forget that God’s love for us in unstoppable. We forget that God is pursuing us. We forget how big our God is.
So why have WE made things so complicated? We put our human ways into a God centered action. We have put rules and regulations on a thing that God gave us with no restraints, love. We have thrown our selfishness into love. We have put limitations on our love for one another. We love the people that can love us back, and we only love the people that can benefit us.
Our view of love has been so distorted by society. We love the things that are easy to love, the beautiful things, the good things. Why do we not love the things that are hard to love, the not so pretty, the not so good? We have let hatred creep in and harden our hearts for those around us. We sit back and complain about the world and the problems in it.
When God started loving us from the beginning, we were not pretty, and we were not good. Imagine the world if people started loving one another the way God loves us. Love gives people hope. We have the ability to bring the hope and love of God to this earth on a daily basis.
God would still be God, with or without us. He doesn’t need us, He WANTS us. How awesome is that? The God of all creation wants to love us.
In the words of my dad, “When is the last time you did something for someone who could give you nothing in return?”
In the aftermath of this life, we turn to God. When things go wrong or something terrible happens, we turn to God. When we have no where else to go and have lost everything, we turn to God. But why do we not do this all the time? It is almost like we forget that God is there until we need Him.
One of the biggest issues of today’s world is the sense of being able to do everything on our own. We don’t like to ask for help and our pride gets in the way. We act like we can do it alone and we look good on the outside, but in the quiet we are all wrecked and beat up in some way. We are all caught up in our own aftermath.
We forget daily that we are in a constant struggle to live the way God intended. We walk through our lives and forget that God has put us here to help others through their aftermath. But to do that, we must first take care of our own.
It is crazy to me how much we, as humans, have lost touch with one another. Not in the fact that we can’t figure out what is going on in the world around us, but that we choose not to.
What most people forget is that they aren’t pefect, and that sin is sin. Especially as Christians, we tend to point out the faults in this world without recognizing our own (plank in your eye, spec in your brothers).
Guess what, you will not be judged when you get to Heaven according to how other people acted, that simple.
I do it all the time, I compare my “level” of sin to someone else’s sin, and that isn’t how it works.
This world would be a much better place if everyone, instead of trying to fix everyone around them, just fixed themselves.
When you see that someone needs to work out physically, you don’t run for them to lose weight, you don’t lift weights for them to get stong, you don’t do crunches for them to get abs, they have to do it themsleves.
It is the same way spiritually. We must make oursleves spiritually fit with God being our personal trainer. Sounds cheesy, but thats how it is. Except it is free, not $50+ an hour.
Let God work on others, you just work on you.
The Beginning of Wisdom 