Focus on Me

Scrolling through my social media, I find people judging others and calling them out for their gestures, actions, words, and thoughts. They notice other people’s sins and wrongdoings and post them for the whole world to see. While they post the sins of others, they hide their own sins. They complain that the world will never become better but worse because other people refuse to repent and change their evil ways.

Why do we focus on other people so much? Do we know we have a plank in our own eyes?

If it sounds controversial and hypocritical it is. Many people would rather point out the sins and wrongdoings of other than fix and change themselves. If they can direct people’s attention off of them, then they can continue in their own evil ways.

I encountered these ideas and words all my life in the church and Christian institutions. I am also guilty of doing the same thing. I want to hide my sins from others because I fear that they will judge me and dismiss me. I have come to understand that none of us can hide from God.  

Life seems much easier to point out the sins and evils of other people than to repent of our own sins and evils. If we take the time to fix ourselves, we will change. Change brings difficulties and reveals the truth.

We must all face the truth that we all have sin and evil in our lives. Jesus told the people in his message to take out the planks in their own eyes before attempting to take the speck of sawdust out of someone else’s eyes. He made it clear that we cannot put others people’s sins on a scale and ignore our own.

The world must become better. If I stand and point at everyone who must do the work to make the world a better place, I relieve myself from having to do anything. So many people use social media as a platform to inform others of what they must do to make the world a better place, while they sit and scroll on their devices and do nothing.

We can only begin to make the world a brighter and better place when we look into our own souls and make the changes that we must make.

 We don’t always know who we influence. We don’t know who listens or reads our words. One thing I know that most people remember what I did and not what I said or posted on social media.

When we focus on repenting of our own sins and changing our ways, someone changes. Someone does something to make the world a bit brighter. If we want the world to be better, let’s work on taking the planks out of our eyes.

 

Dreams in Los Angeles

 Even though this New Year, 2025, may have had a troubling start, we cannot give up on our dreams. In fact, maybe we need to rely on our dreams. Fires ravaged homes and created chaos in the Los Angeles area and recovery will take its time. Some people have a fire raging inside of them because life started with difficult times, or they have such investment in politics they cannot conceive Donald Trump as President. However, dreams exist.

Let us remember that on this day, as we celebrate the birthday of Martin Luther King Jr., that we can have a dream that celebrates other people and brings them to life. Over thirty years ago, Matthew Barnett had a dream to bring the gospel to those hurting the most in Los Angeles. He went to one of the most dangerous parks in the community at one in the morning and prayed. God told him to go to the home of gang members.

When he went to the home of those gang members, he just asked how he could help. They stared in disbelief. Soon, they came to his little church. They gave their lives to Jesus, and within time, Echo Park in Los Angeles became a community that helped one another because the Dream Center remains open 24/7.

After thirty years, many have come to Jesus. Homeless veterans, families, and those from rehabilitation have had a home at the Dream Center, so it does not come as a surprise that they have become a focal point of helping the community of Los Angeles.

People help when they see other people’s dreams destroyed. The Dream Center stands as a church that brings the healing of Jesus to the people in Los Angeles. When the world destroys our dreams, Jesus can restore us. For some of us, He gives us new dreams to pursue.

Your dreams may have been smashed at the beginning of this New Year, but you can recover and let Jesus restore you. Revisit your dreams. Do they involve helping other people or do they just make your life easier or better? Follow Jesus and your dreams will match his goals for your life that will also involve loving people.

The two greatest commands can be seen in the Los Angeles area after these fires…loving God and loving people. You can only love God when you love others. So take some time and find people in your life that could benefit from your gifts and talents and persevere this year to make those goals happen. In the end, you will have a better year for it.

Hope for 2025

 

A social media influencer in Southern California wanted to help people displaced from the fires, so he set up his hotdog cart in the Rose Bowl parking lot ready to feed 500 people. He posted it on social media to feed people. When people arrived, he got a surprise. Most people came to donate items.

With more social media posts, word spread and more people came with donations. One restaurant owner in Long Beach asked people to bring donations to his restaurant. He then brought two rental box trucks to the pop-up donation center.

The local news broadcasted it. It grew so large that they had to move since the first responders used the Rose Bowl parking lot. The pop-up donation center continues and people who have lost everything can get items that they need now.

It all started because someone wanted to bring hope to the hopeless. When the ashes fall, hope must rise so we can rebuild.

I started the New Year full of hope. I organized my social media posts for the month of January, including my blogs, worked on my daily habits, and on New Year’s Day saw one of the best Rose Bowl Parades in the last decade.  Then, on Tuesday January 7^th, fires raged in the Pacific Palisades. Then, other fires began erupting throughout Southern California including the Pasadena area.

Even though I no longer live in Los Angeles County, whenever the wind begins to rise, my heart races with thoughts if we are next here in Orange County. (This county sits south of Los Angeles County and about thirty miles from the fires and further.) My heart breaks for all the people who lost everything.

I still pray for the people in North Carolina and Florida where hurricanes devastated their homes, and I pray for Maui, another city where a fire destroyed communities. I don’t care if the people have great wealth or live paycheck to paycheck. I don’t care if they identify as a different religion, ethnicity, or gender than me. I care about humanity.

I had planned to write about hope. I believe that the start of the New Year brings us a renewed hope to do more and be better human beings. Once the fires broke out, I realized that many people began to lose hope, most of it in humanity, but they didn’t know the truth.

People brought food to the firefighters. The In ‘N Out truck gave free meals to the first responders, every non-profit organization has called for donations in all areas of Los Angeles, and people have responded with bringing what they can.

People lose hope when they sit in the darkness alone. The residents of Los Angeles have let the victims of these fires know that they are not alone. The media does not report all these acts of hope because they only want to share the bad news and the news that will get the most clicks revealing the tragedy.

We cannot lose hope even if our plans get shifted and changed. Jesus brings us His love and grace no matter what we have done. He reminds us that He will never leave our side. With Jesus in our lives, we must bring Him to those who have experienced a tragedy.

So, my goal changed for the New Year with hope. Look around your community and find the one area in which you can do something or donate. With your one act of kindness, you will give hope to the hopeless, which is what we just celebrated less than a month ago with the birth of Jesus.

 Let’s be the living hope for others. Who knows what will rise from these ashes. I hope it will be homes full of love for Jesus and other people. That can happen if we all just share one part of the hope of Jesus that we have.

 

Hope for the New Year

 I don’t remember how the tradition started. It may have been through a conversation with other youth pastors because I knew enough to only take students in their senior year of high school, but in my youth ministry career at Lakewood Christian Church, I brought students to the Rose Bowl Parade.

We camped out on New Year’s Eve after we celebrated bringing in the New Year at an amusement park with Christian concerts. We grabbed the last front row spot near the end of the parade. We saw the bomber airplanes at 8:00AM and the police escorts at 9:30AM. We camped out at night and had a blast. We learned that at 2:00AM everyone runs to the “blue line” in the street to keep their front row spot.

The parade didn’t disappoint. The beautiful floats, in which you could actually smell the flowers, and the marching bands, including UCLA greeting us with a Happy New Year before playing their fight song and performing in the Rose Bowl game, made the experience worth every freezing moment.

Fast forward to 2015 when I volunteered to help a coworker work on the floats. I did that for two years. I saw the hard work and met creators of floats. I brought in the New Year with a new formed pride of helping with those floats, as I watched them go down Colorado Boulevard on television.

These sweet memories remind me that the New Year has potential to be life changing. We all enter the New Year with so much hope, but many of us grow weary when difficult times call for us to rise to the occasion, and we just may not have the means or strength to do that. We just have to maintain our hope.

Hope. Once we lose hope, we give up on our goals. We lose hope when something comes into our path in life that causes us to turn. Our path does not remain straight but has twists and turns and ups and downs. We cannot lose hope but keep hope and put our trust in Jesus.

Jesus gives us hope, and He wants us to move and face our challenges. No journey is complete without a challenge. On that parade route so many years ago, we searched for a decent restroom in the morning. We faced the elements of the weather with wind and cold, and yet we stayed because the parade would come in the morning. The hope of the coming parade kept us on the street.

Each New Year we have hope. This year, let that hope continue throughout the entire year. Each new day brings hope for something beautiful to come your way. It may not be a parade of flowers and marching bands, but if we can march into each day with joy that God has given us a new day to bring His Word into the world, we might truly have a Happy New Year!

 

The Vote of America

 I voted in the Presidential election for the first time in 1992 in Southern California. I put my vote in the box, walked home, turned on the television, and they told me who won the election. I stared. My vote still sat at the bottom of the box. It didn’t count. Now, when I go on social media to see the life of my friends, I have people explaining that if I don’t vote like them, I’m doomed and will lose my salvation, which the Bible does not endorse.  How would that happen if my vote didn’t even count? 

Other people on social media scream that when we vote, we do the most important thing that we can ever do. I disagree. I did the most important thing in my life when I gave my life to Christ. 

Something in our country must change. We must not give into the same deeds of the media and taunt and call people names or threaten the salvation of others. We cannot allow the wrong voices to lead us into an area that we don’t belong. 

Jesus did not come to die on the cross so we would have the freedom to vote. In fact, the Israelites waited for a political king and got Jesus, a sacrificial king who died for our sins. Voting has importance, but it has its place, and we must keep it in its place. 

Whoever becomes the leader of the country, the state, or city does not determine your life. You make your life. You must discover how you can manage living in a world in which people think and believe differently than you. It may not always be safe and comfortable, but it will be a world in which you can live for Jesus. So, how do we get to this point? 

1. Stop Guilt-Shaming

One of the manipulative tactics that affected my spiritual faith from the church came in the form of guilt-shaming. Guilt shaming questions your Christianity. In the political world, people use it to question how a Christian could vote for a specific candidate or a policy. Jesus never guilt-shamed. 

Our salvation does not rely on how we vote every four years. Jesus didn’t shed his blood for you to manipulate people or guilt-shame them. Could Christinas be sinning with their vote? Absolutely. You know what? Focus on your sins, and the ones that you need Jesus to take from you, and America will be a better country. 

When you respond to someone guilt-shaming, call them out on the guilt-shaming and not the rhetoric. You will not win them over with, “But your side believes…” Point out that when they guilt-shame, they sin because they commit the sin of lying because manipulation fits in the arena of lying. 

2. Listen to the other side to understand

I voted Republican, Democrat, and Independent. If you listened to my story, you would understand my vote. We must start at the root of the problem. Most of the political issues have a root that must be upended. Work on discovering the root issue with the party you support and begin uprooting it to find a solution. 

Most voters want our country to have freedom and help each other, but different visions of how to do that. People have a different journey than you. Instead of screaming on social media, listen. 

Listen. Ask questions. Don’t demonize. Don’t guilt-shame the other person. Listen. Listen to the heart of someone. Find what you have in common. 

When you listen, see the individual. One of the quotes about Auschwitz stated that the Nazi’s gained power over the Jews because they saw people as a group and not an individual. Just because ethnicity, a religion, or a career does something doesn’t mean everyone associated with that does that same thing. 

Do Something

It may sound trite to not be so concerned with the election, but the fact remains that we must live and do life not just wring our hands because we don’t agree with who leads the country, state, or city. 

If you have an immense passion about an issue, then begin to serve and volunteer within that area. If you already do that, step up and find the root cause of why the issue exists. You may be surprised that your political pundits have caused more problems than solutions. I did. 

When I started working in the urban community in education, I thought I could make a difference in those schools, and the education system would change. I was wrong. It took me four years to discover the root issue of the deplorable conditions of the academics in the schools in our poor communities. 

Find your passion. Go volunteer. You will discover that problems can be solved when you do something because solutions come with acts of love not passive acts on a device. 

Love with the love of Jesus

People on both sides of the political aisle love to quote Jesus to fit their agenda. Then, they guilt-shame or berate those who vote differently than them. They do not display the love of Jesus. Jesus loves everyone. Have you seen the commercials “He Gets Us”? I don’t care who does those. I fear that too many judgmental people don’t hear the message of those commercials: Jesus loves everyone. 

Jesus loves democrats, republicans, independents, and even those who choose not to vote. Jesus taught us to love our enemies and to go the extra mile for them. He didn’t tell us to eliminate them from our lives. 

In 1988, I asked my friends at my small Christian college which college basketball team should I cheer for in the NCAA tournament. My Indiana friends said Indiana University, and my Kentucky friends said the University of Kentucky. On spring break that year, I watched the Final Four and found my team. They had the best looking guy in the tournament! I chose Duke University, and yes, that cute guy was Christian Laettner. I’ve been a Duke fan ever since. So, telling me who to vote for could result in me still picking my own choice. 

Follow Jesus. Follow the two greatest commands: Love God and Love people, including those who voted differently than you. Our country will be better because of it. 

Art Offends

 Art offends. Art is subjective. The opening of the 2024 Olympics offended some, and some saw the beauty of art. I found most of it repulsive and the 1980s screaming that they want their fashion back! I also had disappointment that the focus moved off the athletes and focused on art. No matter who hosts the Olympics, the focus is sports, even if the artsy fartsy people of this world do not like sports. 

The problem didn’t exist in the art. It existed in the responses to the response of the art. Does it sound confusing? Let me explain. The responses to some people’s response to the opening ceremony remind me of why I struggled with the church. 

I struggled in the church because people would call me ignorant or laugh at my claims. One claim got securely founded when a congregation erupted in applause when the pastor said the exact same claim. I felt validated in my claims and my beliefs, but the healing from the insults and gaslighting took years to overcome. 

Telling me not to be offended can be a form of gaslighting. At least, that’s what all the offended people on social media inform me when they get offended by conservatives. Anyone can be offended. No one has ignorance because they get offended. You don’t know everything about their life and what can trigger them. 

We must stop gatekeeping. Here’s how you learn to look at art. Look at it. What do you see? Take the example of a picture of the ocean. Some can see a beautiful ocean. Others see a monster of danger depending on their life experiences with water. The artist may have depicted peace or the depth of life. Your view may differ from the artist’s origin of thought.  

I have heard many screenwriters claim that it makes them smile how people see their film, but that they never intended for it to be taken in the way the people viewed it. Some artists do create art to offend and make a message. They love the response that they receive. They love the conflicts that it produces, and so many of us fall right into it. 

So, how do we move from gaslighting and being offended that someone gets offended? We take a step in the other person’s shoes. In other words, we put the words of Jesus into practice. “Just as you want others to do for you, do the same for them.” (Matthew 6:31; CSB) Do you want people to tell you not to be offended? Do you want people to call you stupid? If you don’t, then stop doing it to others, even on social media. 

First, realize that people get offended because of their lived experiences and beliefs. Humble yourself and realize, especially on social media, you don’t know everything about everybody. Let them be offended. Validate their point of view. “I see how that can hurt.” Then, explain how you see it. “This is what I see.” Validating people’s huts brings peace and conflicts can be avoided. 

Next, don’t respond. You don’t have to respond to everything on social media. I started responding to this stupid debate over the opening of the 2024 Olympics and immediately regretted it. I’m not boycotting sports. I’m cheering hard for those young people who do incredible things with their physical bodies and have worked so hard. The young people sitting at home need to learn from the hard work and their determination. 

Finally, find a way to be productive. Post art that brings healing rather than controversy. For those of you who live in the USA, when the Olympics return to our country in 2028, come and serve. They need volunteers for the events. Meet the tourists and with your kindness represent Jesus. Find a way to heal the many who will come with all kinds of hurts. 

We must do better as human beings. The church has struggled with gaslighting and using harmful words, but I see progress that many leaders have attempted to teach their congregation to be better. We can all be better. Let art offend. Then, let the light of Jesus bring healing to a world that has so much hurt. Jesus didn’t come to save the righteous but the sinners. Let’s reach out to those who need Jesus. 

For my Olympic viewer friends: GO USA! 

Summer Break

Every child looks forward to summer break from school. You get a break from the monotony of the schedule of waking up early, having an early bedtime, and no schoolwork. Teachers enjoy the break from lesson planning and grading. Parents get a break when the kids go back to school. 

Everyone needs a break or vacation or a rest. Society tells us to keep going even when our body has complete exhaustion. Looking at scripture, God demands that we take a break or a rest. 

God created the earth in six days and rested on the seventh day. (You can argue the time frame of those seven days because a day is like a thousand years to God, but the point remains that he took a rest from creating.) In the ten commandments, God commanded the Israelites to take a Sabbath from their work. He even commanded them to take a year of jubilee every seven years so the land could rest from planting and harvesting. 

Since God created a time for humans to rest, we must rest. We must stop with excuses and create times in our lives to rest. Unlike school children, you may not be able to take a two month break from work, but with consistent times of rest, you can become more productive in your family, friendships, and your career. 

First, put rest in your weekly schedule. You can create time with family or friends in that time, but make sure not to do any work. As a teacher, I had to develop the skill of doing work at school and be creative with lesson planning and grading while at school. Guard your time off from people who want to fill it with tasks that become burdensome, that includes the church. 

Along with scheduling a day of the week to stop and rest, schedule time in your daily schedule rest. Cut off your screen time and go to bed at a specific time. Your smartphone has a bedtime app you can use. This also helps with health. Once I got into this habit this last year, I had better results with being less tired and even lost weight

Find a hobby that relaxes you and brings creativity into your life. This means putting down the devices, unless you read from a device, and bring peace into your life with enjoyment of a hobby. You don’t have to create a masterpiece of art or even share with everyone what your hobby is, but the less time you spend online and the more you spend on something purposeful, the stronger you will become. 

God took a rest to set the example that we must rest. Don’t let others guilt-shame you into thinking that you must serve at a specific task all the time, or the church will crumble. God has more power than any human. The church will stand with or without your service. Take the time to rest and guard it from guilt-shaming people. You may need to dissolve those relationships so you can have healthy decisions in your life. 

With the heat of summer upon us, take the time to schedule in days of rest. It may be a slow start, but the more you do it, the more you will crave more. The more you rest and regather your thoughts, the better your life becomes. Let God lead you to rest this week. Who knows, you might find the one thing that you needed to be doing all along.