Archive for the Spiritual Maturity & Discipleship Category

Hippos on the run!

Posted in Recovery & Addiction, Spiritual Maturity & Discipleship, Uncategorized on January 23, 2010 by benfeldott

I was thinking about the “rut” we often find ourselves in, how our past is repeated as if it has some sick control over my life. We live in prisons to our past – truth is we have a hard time envisioning anything different for our selves than the reality we have experienced time and again.

That got me thinking about Nikica, a 4000 pound hippo in a zoo in Montenegro. Hippos are the 3rd largest land animals in the world (Elephants and Rhino’s being larger…cause I know you were wonderin’ !) and one of the most dangerous (Have you seen those teeth) but they are hardly an escape risk.  You see if your a hippo in a zoo, your stuck, you can dream about sneaking out or jumping the fence but that is all it is…a dream!

That is what I love about the story of Nikica….she escaped!  Yep, a 4000 pd hippo got away. It seems the zoo flooded so badly that the water in Nikica’s pen rose high enough to allow her to swim out (Picture below) to freedom.

In a way we are all hippo’s who can’t jump the fence or sneak away and may be thinking, “I’m stuck!” That is precisely the time we need to be flooded with  God’s grace that brings us to freedom and a new way of living.

We find the power of Phil 4:13 (I can do all things through him who strengthens me) is not in the 1st word but in the 7th.

Here is some  video of Nikica on the run!

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The effect of Fake

Posted in Culture, Spiritual Maturity & Discipleship, Uncategorized on January 16, 2010 by benfeldott

In my latest message series I am talking about “Self Image” and specifically this week about the effect of what others say/think about us can have.  We have all been painted with the “broad brush” before – the problem is not in what others say, it is when we wear the comments on our heart and sleeve.

Can you remember the comments from your childhood or teen years that still stick like and unwelcome guest you cannot get rid of? I got thinking about these words of   criticism that become self-fulfilling prophecies and then I came across this study.

In a recent experiment being published in the psychological SCience Journal a group of people were asked to wear fake (counterfeit) glasses and then given a test of honesty with a dose of temptation. Those wearing the counterfeit sunglasses were more likely to lie (30% to 71%) to lie.  hard to believe just wearing fake glasses could cause that kind of behavior. It seems that simply wearing something fake can lead to “faking it”.

Here is my thought for this series – how often have the counterfeit criticism of culture led a to counterfeit behavior in our lives. Think about it, a peer a neighbor a teacher a parent says “You are _______’ and we go on living or fearing that it is true. We are wearing the counterfeit sunglasses and end up living it out in a sick self-fulfilling prophecy.

So as y ou think about this study think about what God has to say about each of us….

Psalms 23:7 says “For as a man thinketh in his heart, so is he” and Romans 12:2 says it this way…… “Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect.

Click here to read the study. (video summary below)

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