People Are Dying of Loneliness

            People are dying of loneliness. … Literally. …. Dying. But there is a solution and it is in your local church.

            Researchers at Brigham Young University (BYU) recently published a study which showed that lonely people have a 30% increased likelihood of premature death. According to the study, loneliness is as great a risk factor for early death as smoking, obesity and alcoholism.

            This fits with the findings of earlier studies at the University of Chicago which found that loneliness can increase the levels of cortisol, a stress hormone linked to higher rates of stroke and heart attack.

            What makes this a serious public health issue is that there are more people living alone now than in more than a century. Twenty-seven percent of households are single person homes, according to the US Census Bureau. This is up from 17% of households in 1970.

           

            “We need to start taking our social relationships more seriously,” said Julianne Holt-Lunstad, co-author of the BYU study.

            But, the study also found the opposite to be true. People with healthy, supportive relationships tend to be healthier, happier and to live longer. “The secret of living longer,” the study concluded, “is to not be alone.”

For more information see:

http://news.byu.edu/archive15-mar-loneliness.aspx

http://www.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/conditions/07/27/moh.healthmag.lonely.heart/

God’s Solution

            None of this is the least bit surprising. All the way back in the Garden of Eden, even before sin entered the world, God said that loneliness was not good.

            “Then the LORD God said, ‘It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make a helper suitable for him’” (Gen. 2:18). God’s solution for the first not-good-thing in all the creation was intimacy with another person.

            As these studies show, relationships are just as important today for good health and happiness as they were for Adam. And the Church is a great place to foster good, healthy relationships.

            The Bible says a great deal about the value of relationships. In Psalm 133:1-3 God says that it is “good and pleasant” when people dwell together in unity. He compares it to precious oil poured on the head and running down into the beard (a really good thing in that culture) and to dew on the mountains. Oil and dew are images for God's blessings. The Psalmist is saying that relationships, good friendships, are a God-given gift. (See also Psalm 15, Prov. 17:17, John 13:34-35, Philemon 4-7).

            “God’s preventive for loneliness is intimacy – meaningful, open, sharing relationships with one another,” said Neil T. Anderson, founder of Freedom in Christ Ministries. And, the Church is a great place to find these kinds of intimate relationships.

            In fact, the Church is perfectly equipped to provide opportunities for life-saving friendships.

            From classes and Bible studies, to discussion and prayer groups, to ministry and service teams, to one-on-one mentoring, to pot-luck dinners and Sunday morning coffee times, the typical church has dozens of opportunities for people to meet, connect and grow friendships.

            As people become increasing disconnected and isolated from each other one of the most important things the Church can offer is a way to make friends and build relationships. Life with friends is better in every way.

           And, not only is life more pleasant with friends, having friends can even prolong your life.  

More Relationship Quotes

           "Remember, we are to be ministers of grace to each other. We are to seek to be avenues of the Holy Spirit to help the other person appropriate the grace of God." ---Jerry Bridges

          "The Bible knows nothing of solitary religion." ---John Wesley

          "Association promotes assimilation. A Christian who lives in isolation from other believers will fail to receive the blessings as well as the maturity resulting from godly interaction." ---Joel Beeke

          "Some Christians try to go to heaven alone, in solitude. But believers are not compared to bears or lions or other animals that wander alone. Those who belong to Christ are sheep in this respect, that they love to get together. Sheep go in flocks, and so do God's people." ---Charles H. Spurgeon

          "Satan always hates Christian fellowship; it is his policy to keep Christians apart. Anything which can divide saints from one another he delights in. He attaches far more importance to godly intercourse than we do. Since union is strength, he does his best to promote separation." ---Charles H. Spurgeon

          "Satan watches for those vessels that sail without a convoy." ---George Swinnock

Please share Heart Matters with your family and friends, and, if you haven't already done so, please "like" our page on facebook.

We use third party advertisements on heartmattersbms.blogspot.com to support our site. Some of these advertisers may use technology such as cookies and web beacons when they advertise on our site, which will also send these advertisers (such as Google through the Google AdSense program) information including your IP address, your ISP , the browser you used to visit our site, and in some cases, whether you have Flash installed. This is generally used for geotargeting purposes (showing New York real estate ads to someone in New York, for example) or showing certain ads based on specific sites visited (such as showing cooking ads to someone who frequents cooking sites).

You can chose to disable or selectively turn off our cookies or third-party cookies in your browser settings, or by managing preferences in programs such as Norton Internet Security. However, this can affect how you are able to interact with our site as well as other websites. This could include the inability to login to services or programs, such as logging into forums or accounts. 

This Week's Top 10 Quotes

Every day, on my social media sites, I post quotes I hope will inspire, encourage or otherwise help those who read them.

Based on “likes” from my facebook page, these are the 10 Most Popular Quotes from last week.

10. You must do the things that you think you cannot do. ---Eleanor Roosevelt  

9.  Big thoughts go nowhere without bold action. Ask a big question. Now, pause to

    imagine what life looks like with the answer. ---Gary Keller

8.  Never give up, for that is just the place and time that the tide will turn.

   ---Harriett Beecher Stowe

7. The proactive approach to a mistake is to acknowledge it instantly, correct and learn

    from it. ---Stephen Covey

6. Try one more time.

5. Pick your battles. You don’t have to show up to every argument you’re invited to

    ---Mandy Hale

4. The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step. ---Lao Tzu

3. Believers look up--take courage. The angels are closer than you think. ---Billy

   Graham

2. Grace is when somebody hurts you and you try to understand their situation instead

    of trying to hurt them back.  

1.    Sometimes God does not change your situation because he is trying to change your heart.---Toby Mac

Please share Heart Matters with your family and friends, and, if you haven't already done so, please "like" our page on facebook.

We use third party advertisements on heartmattersbms.blogspot.com to support our site. Some of these advertisers may use technology such as cookies and web beacons when they advertise on our site, which will also send these advertisers (such as Google through the Google AdSense program) information including your IP address, your ISP , the browser you used to visit our site, and in some cases, whether you have Flash installed. This is generally used for geotargeting purposes (showing New York real estate ads to someone in New York, for example) or showing certain ads based on specific sites visited (such as showing cooking ads to someone who frequents cooking sites).

You can chose to disable or selectively turn off our cookies or third-party cookies in your browser settings, or by managing preferences in programs such as Norton Internet Security. However, this can affect how you are able to interact with our site as well as other websites. This could include the inability to login to services or programs, such as logging into forums or accounts. 

The Key to Success - Grit

                What is the number one characteristic of people who succeed? It’s probably not what you think. It’s not talent and it’s not intelligence. There are many talented people and many smart people who never live up to their potential. So, what is the number one characteristic of successful people?

                According to psychologist Angela Lee Duckworth it’s grit. That’s right, grit.

                Duckworth is a former seventh grade math teacher who noted that there did not seem to be a direct correlation between IQ in general or math ability in particular to which of her students did well in class. Many of her smartest or most talented students performed poorly while others of average, or even less than average, ability outperformed the smart, talented kids. This observation so sparked her interest that she quit her job, went to graduate school in psychology and has since dedicated her career to the study of success.

                She has studied people in a variety of challenging situations, looking for characteristics common among those who excel. She went to West Point and interviewed cadets. She observed contestants in the National Spelling Bee. She followed teachers in some of the country’s toughest school districts to see which ones were still on the job five years later, and turning out high performing students. She tracked salesmen to discover which ones stuck it out through all the rejection and actually made money.

                From all these studies she found one characteristic held in common by people who succeeded in the most challenging endeavors – grit.

                What is grit? Duckworth defines grit as “passion and perseverance for very long term goals. Having stamina. Staying with your future day in and day out, not for the week, not for the month, but for years. And, working really hard to make that future a reality. It is living life as a marathon, not as a sprint.”

                How does one become gritty? She stresses repeatedly, it’s not a matter of talent or intelligence. Many talented, intelligent people do not follow through. And following through is key. Success is not defined by starting well, it is defined by finishing well.

                Grittiness comes from a mindset. It comes from a determination to simply not quit. Duckworth said, “We have to be willing to try, and fail, and then try again using the lessons learned.”

For more check out Duckworth’s Ted Talk “The Key to Success? Grit” at http://www.ted.com/talks/angela_lee_duckworth_the_key_to_success_grit

Please share Heart Matters with your family and friends, and, if you haven't already done so, please "like" our page on facebook.

We use third party advertisements on heartmattersbms.blogspot.com to support our site. Some of these advertisers may use technology such as cookies and web beacons when they advertise on our site, which will also send these advertisers (such as Google through the Google AdSense program) information including your IP address, your ISP , the browser you used to visit our site, and in some cases, whether you have Flash installed. This is generally used for geotargeting purposes (showing New York real estate ads to someone in New York, for example) or showing certain ads based on specific sites visited (such as showing cooking ads to someone who frequents cooking sites).

You can chose to disable or selectively turn off our cookies or third-party cookies in your browser settings, or by managing preferences in programs such as Norton Internet Security. However, this can affect how you are able to interact with our site as well as other websites. This could include the inability to login to services or programs, such as logging into forums or accounts. 

                

This Week's Top 10 Quotes

Every day, on my social media sites, I post quotes I hope will inspire, encourage or otherwise help those who read them.

Based on “likes” from my facebook page, these are the 10 Most Popular Quotes from this week.

10. The glory of Christianity is to conquer with forgiveness. ---William Blake

9. All dreams can come true, if we have the courage to pursue them. ---Walt Disney

8. Discipline is doing what you know needs to be done, even though you don’t want to.

    ---Gary Keller

7. You can easily judge the character of a man by how treats those who can nothing for

    him. ---Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

6. By perseverance the snail reached the ark. ---Charles H. Spurgeon

5. It's always too soon to quit. ---Norman Vincent Peale

4. Today, did I offer peace? Say words of healing? Did I forgive? Did I love? These are

    the real questions. ---Henri Nouwen

3. I am sore wounded, but not slain,
    I will lay me down and bleed a while
    And then rise up to fight again.
   ---John Dryden

2. Obstacles are not the greatest threat to extraordinary achievement. The greatest

    threat is the allure of the easy path to small goals.

1.    You keep putting one foot in front of the other, and then one day you look back and you've climbed a mountain. ---Tom Hiddleston

Please share Heart Matters with your family and friends, and, if you haven't already done so, please "like" our page on facebook.

We use third party advertisements on heartmattersbms.blogspot.com to support our site. Some of these advertisers may use technology such as cookies and web beacons when they advertise on our site, which will also send these advertisers (such as Google through the Google AdSense program) information including your IP address, your ISP , the browser you used to visit our site, and in some cases, whether you have Flash installed. This is generally used for geotargeting purposes (showing New York real estate ads to someone in New York, for example) or showing certain ads based on specific sites visited (such as showing cooking ads to someone who frequents cooking sites).

You can chose to disable or selectively turn off our cookies or third-party cookies in your browser settings, or by managing preferences in programs such as Norton Internet Security. However, this can affect how you are able to interact with our site as well as other websites. This could include the inability to login to services or programs, such as logging into forums or accounts. 

Let Love Be Genuine - Romans 12:9

            In our families, in our churches, in the world, each of us has a job to do, which is unique to us. To do that job God has given each of us a supply of time, talents, gifts, and energy. There are many jobs. Paul wrote that there are varieties of gifts, varieties of service and varieties of activities. Each has been given “for the common good” (1 Corinthians 12:4-7). All should be practiced as each is able. None of us will be exactly like another in what we do. But there is One Thing, one most important thing, which everyone must practice, which everyone must do. That One Thing is Love.

            In my last post I showed that Love is the most important thing for the Christian, for every Christian. Jesus said that love for God and love for others was the sum of all the commandments (Matthew 22:36-40). He also said that the One Thing that shows that a person is his disciple is that he loves others (John 13:34-35). Paul wrote that without love we are nothing (1 Corinthians 13:1-3). And, when Paul went from theology to practical application for Christian living he began, characteristically, with love (Romans 12:9). In this post I begin to explore how that kind of love ought to work out in our relationships with others.

As many have pointed out, love may be the most over used word in language. We love our favorite food, love our music, and love the weather, sometimes. Used like this love connotes “things that appeal to my personal tastes.”

            But, we also love our family, love our friends and love our country. Used this way love means something different. This is the kind of love that, while it certainly involves our preferences, also moves us to work, even sacrifice, for the good of others.

            What is it that Paul means when he says that followers of Jesus must love one another?

            Surprisingly, he never defines love. Rather, he describes it. He lists things that love is and in that way gives a picture of what love in action looks like. The first thing that Paul says about love in Romans 12:9 is that it must be genuine.

The Greek word that is translated here as genuine comes from the same word that gives us the English word hypocritical. It’s a word that comes from the theater. In Paul’s time actors used masks to show their character’s emotional state. If the script called for a character to be happy, the actor put on a happy mask. If the character was supposed to be sad the actor put on a sad mask. To be hypocritical was to wear a mask and play a part.

Love, according to Paul, must not wear a mask. Love must not be a part we play. Love must not be hypocritical. Love must be real. He is saying, “Christian, do not act as though you love one another. Do not pretend to love one another. Really love!”

            Some translators use the word sincere here rather than genuine. Love must be sincere. Sincere comes from a Latin phrase, sine cera, which means without wax. In ancient times a common trick by less than scrupulous merchants to hide cracks in pottery was to fill the cracks with wax. They would next paint over the now disguised crack and then sell the piece as if it was whole and unbroken. But, it was a fake. To counter this practice, honest merchants often stamped their good pots sine cera – without wax, not a fake. It was the genuine article.

            Our love for one another must be sine cera, not fake. It must be the real deal.

So, what is genuine love? What does it look like? Perhaps the best place to go to understand genuine love is 1 Corinthians 13, the famous love chapter. In that chapter Paul makes 15 statements about love. James Montgomery Boice, the former pastor of Tenth Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia, in one his commentaries, helpfully listed and explained each one.

1.     Love is patient. People are not easy to love. Boice wrote that “people are difficult, exasperating and slow.” Love waits, love endures, love seeks to understand.

2.     Love is kind. Scottish theologian Ian Maclaren said, “Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.” Boice wrote “The world is filled with hurting, suffering people. Love knows this and does what it can to help.”

3.     Love does not envy. Following the first two positives there are eight negatives. The first of the things that love is not, or does not, is envy. Love is happy for others when they get good things. “This is because love knows God and is content with the life God has given. Only a believer can be truly happy when others are preferred before himself.”

4.     Love does not boast. Boice wrote, “The world is filled with boasters, people who in one way or another are calling attention to who they are, how important they are, and how much they have achieved. Love does not do this.” He quotes Ronald Reagan who said, “There is no limit to the amount of good you can do if you don’t care who gets the credit.”

5.     Love is not proud. Humility is the contrary of pride. “Love does not have inflated ideas of itself. Love is gracious.” Love puts others first.

6.     Love is not rude. Boice wrote, “The opposite of rudeness is courtesy, and love has good manners.” Good manners show that we are thoughtful of and care about others. A lack of manners reveals self-centeredness. Love treats others well, because …

7.     Love is not self-seeking. “The world looks at somethings and asks, ‘What’s in it for me?’” Love doesn’t do that because “love thinks [first] of the one it loves.” Boice remarked, “Jesus did not seek his own advantage when he came to earth to save us. Rather, he ‘made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant…he humbled himself and became obedient to death—even death on a cross’ (Philippians 2:7-8).”

8.     Love is not easily angered. Nothing is as damaging to relationships, homes, communities and churches as anger. Boice wrote, “Love does not have a short fuse. It is not irritable, not easily provoked. It is not touchy. Love is patient and kind.”

9.     Love keeps no record of wrongs. “Some people have a knack for bringing up mistakes we have made and wounds we have inflicted even decades afterwards.” Not so love. “Love forgets these wrongs….It is not resentful. It is not vindictive.”

10.  Love does not delight in evil.  God is good and God loves what is good. So should his disciples. In Romans 12:9 the next thing that Paul said about love, after saying that it must be genuine, is that it “hates what is evil but clings to what is good.” Boice wrote, “love does not find trash intriguing….dishonest schemes do not please it. Love hates wickedness.”

11.  Love rejoices in the truth. This statement is connected to the previous one about love not delighting in evil. It shows that the evil Paul was thinking of is mainly the evil that lies and deceives. “Love loves truth, above all the truth that is God’s.”

12.  Love always protects. Now Paul comes to four things that love always does. First, it always protects other people, especially those that need protecting the most. “It sides with the weak. It rallies around the one who has been oppressed, attacked, abused, hurt, slandered or otherwise made a victim.”

13.  Love always trusts. Boice wrote that while love is not stupid or gullible, it does “always think the best.” Love does not default to being suspicious of others, questioning their motives and assuming the worst. Rather, love encourages and says “I believe in you.”

14.  Love always hopes. “Love does not stop loving because it is not loved in return.” Love keeps on looking for the best, love keeps on forgiving. “Love forgives not once or even seven times, but seventy times seven. Love is not even counting.”

15.  Love always perseveres. Boice wrote, “Love never gives up. It is unconquerable, indomitable. Love can outlast hate and evil and indifference. Love can outlast anything.” Boice quoted his predecessor at Tenth Presbyterian, Donald Grey Barnhouse: “It is…the one thing that stands after all else has fallen.”

That’s what sincere, genuine love is. That’s what is to mark our relations with one another. How do you feel after reading that list? Energized and excited to go out there and show the world your commitment to Jesus by the way you love others? Or, do you feel overwhelmed and discouraged because it seems daunting to even think about putting that kind of love into practice? I usually feel more like the latter than the former.

“I can’t do that,” I think. “I can’t love others like that.” And the truth is, I can’t. And neither can you. Which, of course, is part of Paul’s point. If we are a disciple of Jesus, we must do these things, but we can’t do these things. Which is why he began this chapter, “In view of God’s mercies…”

In my next post I’ll consider how God’s mercies make us able to love others in ways we otherwise would never be able to do.

Please share Heart Matters with your family and friends, and, if you haven't already done so, please "like" our page on facebook.

We use third party advertisements on heartmattersbms.blogspot.com to support our site. Some of these advertisers may use technology such as cookies and web beacons when they advertise on our site, which will also send these advertisers (such as Google through the Google AdSense program) information including your IP address, your ISP , the browser you used to visit our site, and in some cases, whether you have Flash installed. This is generally used for geotargeting purposes (showing New York real estate ads to someone in New York, for example) or showing certain ads based on specific sites visited (such as showing cooking ads to someone who frequents cooking sites).

You can chose to disable or selectively turn off our cookies or third-party cookies in your browser settings, or by managing preferences in programs such as Norton Internet Security. However, this can affect how you are able to interact with our site as well as other websites. This could include the inability to login to services or programs, such as logging into forums or accounts. 

             

The Christian's Most Important Thing

               Most successful people and organizations have a laser-like focus on accomplishing their most important thing. Stephen Covey has famously said, “The main thing is to keep the main the main thing.” In his book The One Thing, Gary Keller wrote, “Big success comes when we do a few things well.”

                For Christians to be “successful,” is there One Thing that ought to be our object of a laser-like focus? Out of all the things we could do, is there One Thing that we must do? Is there One Thing that if we fail to do it, the rest doesn’t really matter? I think there is One Thing and that One Thing is love.

                I’ve never counted for myself, but I’ve read many times that there are 613 commandments in the Old Testament. When Jesus was asked which one of these 613 was the greatest, the most important, commandment, he replied: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and the first commandment.” But he didn’t stop there. He continued, “And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” Love God. Love others. Then Jesus said something really profound. He said, “On these two commandments depend all the Law and Prophets.” (Matthew 22:36-40).

                Do you see what makes that statement so profound? If all the Law and the Prophets, in other words, all the other 611 Old Testament commandments depend on love for God and love for others then that means that all the other commandments must be built on a foundation of love. Obedience to the other commandments must be shaped by love. Every thought, every action, done out of obedience to God’s commandments must first of all manifest love. Or to put it another way, without love, obedience falls short of God’s purposes, every time. That sounds a lot like what Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 13. He said that obedience without love gains nothing and is nothing (1 Corinthians 13:1-3).

                Henry Drummond, a 19^th Century evangelist from Scotland, wrote an essay called “The Greatest Thing in the World” in which he considered the Ten Commandments informed by love:

Take any of the commandments. “Thou shalt have no other gods before me.” If a man love God, you will not have to tell him that. Love is the fulfilling of that law. “Take not his name in vain.” Would he ever dream of taking his name in vain if he loved him? “Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy.” Would he not be too glad to have one day in seven to dedicate more exclusively to the object of his affection? Love would fulfill all these laws regarding God. And so, if he loved man, you would never think of telling him to honor his father and mother. He could not do anything else. It would be preposterous to tell him not to kill. You could only insult him if you suggested that he should not steal—how could he steal from those he loved? It would be superfluous to beg him not to bear false witness against his neighbor. If he loved him, it would be the last thing he would do. And you would never dream of urging him not to covet what his neighbor had. He would rather they possessed it than himself. In this way, “Love is the fulfilling of the law.” It is the rule for fulfilling all rules, the new commandment for keeping all the old commandments, Christ’s one secret to the Christian life.” (Henry Drummond, The Greatest Thing in the World, and other selected essays, ed. William R. Webb, Kansas City, MO.; Halmark Editions, 1967, pp 10 – 11.)

                It is also striking that Jesus elevates love as the One Thing that marks people as disciples. How will others know that we are his disciple? It is not great preaching. It is not correct doctrine. It is not building large congregations. It is not dynamic evangelism. It is not doing good and helping others. It is not even, what I would have guessed, right worship. All these things are good and even necessary, but the One Thing that shows that a person is a disciple, that he or she belongs to Jesus, is love. “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another” (John 13:34-35).

                It is no surprise then that when Paul came in his letter to the Romans to write about the characteristics of an authentic Christian life he started with love.

                The first 11 chapters of Romans are about doctrine. Paul carefully lays out what the Christian ought to believe. God exists, things in the world are very wrong and people are under his wrath (Chapters 1 – 2). All have sinned and are separated from God (Chapter 3). Being made right with God is a matter of faith (Chapter 4). While we were still sinners, Christ died for us (Chapter 5). Though being born dead in Adam, we have been made alive in Christ (Chapters 6 – 7). There is now, therefore, no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus (Chapter 8). God calls all kinds of people to salvation, both Jews and Gentiles, and is making one body of them all (Chapters 9 – 11).

Beginning with Chapter 12 Paul writes about the “so what?” If all that doctrine is true, then, so what? What every-day, where-life-really-happens, difference should it make in our lives? Verses 9 – 21 in Chapter 12 deal with very practical characteristics in our relations with others that must mark the life of a believer. You can probably guess which characteristic heads the list. Love!

 Love must be genuine. Abhor what is evil, cling to what is good. Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor (Rom. 12:9-10).

Genuine love, informed by turning from evil and holding onto good, shown in family-like affection, that honors others above yourself – this is the first characteristic. When it comes to our relationships with others, it’s our One Thing. It’s the Christian’s most important thing.

In my next post I’ll explore love put into action in the Christian community.