life – Page 8 – John Markum

My advice for single people (Steven Furtick)

Posted on February 21, 2011 by johnmarkum

This is a re-post from pastor and author, Steven Furtick. It was so good and timely to singles today, that I had to share it with you. You can follow his blog at stevenfurtick.com

There’s a lot of advice I could give to single and dating people.

How to be content in this season you’re in.
The kind of person you should be looking to marry.
Boundaries for when you’re dating.

All of those are good and necessary. But there’s something that most Christians completely miss that’s an essential principle for optimal relationships and marriages. If you don’t get this, it doesn’t matter who you date because it will be a fraction of the relationship God meant for you. And your marriage to them will be too.

Happiness is not finding the right person. It’s being the right person.

I’ve seen countless Christians sabotage their marriages not because they married the wrong person but because when they got married they weren’t the right person for the other person. Not in their chemistry, but in their character.

If two half people get together and they’re not complete in Christ, they don’t make a whole person. They subtract from each other rather than adding to each other and they become more miserable.

There’s only one half you’re responsible for right now. And that’s your half.

Stop looking for the person of your dreams and start becoming someone another person is dreaming about. Make someone else’s dreams become a reality.

A lot of single people make lists of what they want in the person they’re looking for. That’s fine. Just make sure that if the person you’re looking for had the same list, they’d find you.

You may be waiting in this season of your life for God to bring the right person.
Or you may be wondering if the person you’re dating is the right person.

He will do it.
He will reveal it.

In the meantime, be what you’re looking for.

Can you see it?

Posted on January 9, 2011 by johnmarkum

Have you ever seen one of those “Magic Eye” pictures? They look like a bunch of textures and colors but seem to otherwise have no rhymn or reason to them. It looks kind of like a big mess on the surface. Once you’ve learned to see “into” the picture you figure out how it works and you can see that there is a design to the mess all along. Here, try this one. Different people have different ways of adjusting their eyes to see it, but it all boils down to depth perseption. Try to look about 3 feet past the screen:

If you can see a shark, then you figured it out! Now right now some of you are mad, cause you’ve tried but you can never make these things work for you. You can’t seem to find the trick to seeing what everyone else is seeing.

God’s word brings my life into focus. On the surface, my life is full of textures and colors and looks like some kind of big abstract mess. But through God’s Word I can see that “All thing work together for good, for those who love God and are called according to His purpose.” God’s Word gives me the advantage to see things from a different perspective, God’s perspective. And only then can I truly embrace the circumstances that God brings my way that look like a big mess on the surface level. Hidden inside all of my pain, failures, disappointments, hopes, dreams, and ambitions, is a masterpiece that is breath-taking, but only from the proper vantage point.

Are you getting frustrated because you haven’t seen anything of “masterpiece” quality in your life? Are your current predicaments making you think that your life is a big mess? Then spend some regular time in God’s Word and learn to see things from a better perspective.

The masterpiece that God is putting together in your life, has been there all along. You just have to learn to see it from His perspective.

Blessings,

John

REAL: “Speak Life”

Posted on November 9, 2010 by johnmarkum

This past week, we wrapped up series “REAL: life meets church” with a message called Speak Life, (Proverbs 18:21, “Life and death are in the power of the tongue…”) in which I shared the story of my teenage friend, Bryce, who literally spoke life into me when I was on the verge of suicide. You can read all about that under my post here. We looked in James 3:1-12 which deals with the potential power that our tongues possess to do good or destruction. We also looked at a few other passages and took some principles away from how we talk to people:

Your sin is my business. And my sin is your business. As brothers and sisters in Christ, we are to call one another into our potential to be Christ-like. Hebrews 3:12-13
Build up, don’t tear down. Whenever we speak to others, even when correcting, we use words of life to build them up not tear them down. Jesus did this even when confronting an adulterous women. He did not condone her sin, but called her out of that lifestyle and into her potential.
Don’t be a fool. Proverbs 12:15, “A fool is wise in his own eyes; but the wise receive counsel.” Assume that you can learn something from anyone.
Deal with the person. Matthew 18, Christ tells us how to handle conflict with people which begins with “go to them…” Don’t try to deal with a tense situation over facebook! Go to them, or at least call them.
Stay out of it. Refuse to listen to someone else tearing another person down. It’s gossip, and you should refuse to receive it or spread it. Period. Don’t give-in to your curiosity at the expense of someone else’s reputation.