The Book Is Here !!

I wanted to take an opportunity to talk about the latest book in the Authentic Self series, Challenge Your Fear, Empower Your Spirit.   This is the third book in the series for a reason.  If you have read the first two books and you have decided to embrace the idea that we are all here for a specific purpose and that finding our passion is an integral part of that purpose, you may be ready to put time effort and energy into that task.

But something may be holding you back.  You may feel a little reticent to take a chance. You may be skittish or you’re afraid of failing.  You may feel like you aren’t qualified or you don’t know enough.  Or maybe you are afraid of what others would think about you if you took purpose and meaning seriously and you set goals to fulfill your purpose.

Best selling author and psychologist Jordan Peterson puts it this way when it comes to purpose and meaning in our lives,

“If you have no meaning you are anxious and overwhelmed, we know this from a neuropsychological viewpoint, because purpose gives you a game to play and rules to follow. Purpose gives you something to aim at and positive emotion. Without purpose you are left with inalienable suffering . . . All the meaning in your life is going to come about because of the idea of accepting responsibility. You need the sustaining meaning because otherwise you suffer stupidly and you get bitter, you get resentful and you get cruel and then you get homicidal and then genocidal. That is the whole pathway.”[1]

[1]  www.youtube.com/watch/v=1opHWsHr798&t=6389s

One of the ideas that I mention repeatedly in this book is the idea that purpose and meaning are important not only to give us a goal to reach, they provide guidance, protection and provide goal directed motivation.  This is important to survive all the trials troubles and tribulations that we all have to face living in a broken, fallen world.

   Built for the Storms

One of the most interesting ideas that I came across while doing the research for this book was the fact that we are built to handle adversity trials and storms. That shouldn’t surprise us because scripture tells us

(Philippians 4:5-7 NLT)

The Lord is near. Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

The one thing that we may not understand is that if we don’t go through the trial or the storm, we never experience the peace and fulfillment that comes from getting through it.  We never get to the spiritual and physiologic changes that occur when we face the trial or the fear. There are actual small structural changes in the DNA in our brains that allow us to better handle the same exact situation the next time around.  During the process, we get stronger, we grow larger and more importantly we gain a sense of competence and boldness.

Notice the idea of gain.  That is a crucial component of the whole process of facing our fear because many times when we are afraid, our fear is tied to some type of loss.  We are afraid of losing our health, or our bank accounts or the loss of a loved one or our job.  Losing something can be the basis for our fear.   When we confront and challenge our fear, we are gaining.

  Fear and the Authentic Self

It is clear from reading and studying scripture that there is one basic truth that we can surmise when it comes to fear and anxiety, we were never meant to live out our lives being controlled and dominated by an emotion.  When it comes to absolute truth, we know that we were not given a spirit of fear or timidity. That is the bottom line,

For God has not given us a spirit of fear and timidity, but of power, love, and self-discipline. (2 Timothy 1:7, NIV)

If we choose to live out our lives being controlled and dominated by a spirit of fear, we are not living in authenticity. We are not getting close to the self that God had in mind when he created us. Our true and authentic self is bold, confident and has a sense of competence.  These are the attributes we need to face and challenge our fears.  It is the recognition that we are not powerless, helpless or hopeless.

When we choose to not confront or challenge our fear, we are living a life that falls short of what God had in mind for us. We have no goal, no purpose and no meaning.  This leads to feelings of unfulfillment, anxiety and a sense of aimlessness. The statistics tell us that 100 million people who subscribe to a Christian worldview are experiencing these types of feelings,

 

As we are looking at the ideas of fear, spiritual power and complacency, we are going to use statistics and data supplied by the Barna research group. When it comes to research that applies to Christian believers, their data is unique, powerful, and compelling. The Barna group collected and compiled data gleaned from surveys over a six-year period that involved over 15,000 people.

“More than 100 million American adults who describe themselves as Christian contend that despite their commitment to God they are still searching for clarity regarding their purpose in life. Tens of millions of self-described Christians feel unfulfilled in life, admit they lack direction,and are disappointed that their faith has not produced the kind of meaning and identity they need, and question whether their life makes a difference.” George Barna, Maximum Faith[2]

[2] Barna,George “Maximum Faith” Metainformation/SGG/WHCP; 1^st edition (March 1,2011)p 10

 

During this week  September 21-25 2021,  all three books are being discounted. I just wanted to let my email subscribers know about this.  Here are the links to buy the books.   Challenge Your Fear, will be free for the next few days.  If you do take the opportunity to buy or download one of the books and you enjoyed it, I humbly ask that you please leave a review.

 

Thanks

Your Brother in Christ

Johnny Cavazos MD

 

 

“In order to be truly free, you have to overcome the love of wealth and the fear of  death”

                                                                                                     Martin Luther King

  Controlled By Emotion

Fear is rampant. It is overwhelming at this time. If you think about what the title of this post is saying,  it’s that if you are afraid to die and too scared to live, fear is in control. An emotion is controlling our lives. If we are caught in this situation, we are in limbo. Aimless.   No goal and no purpose. Zombie walking.

I chose this picture because it depicts two paths and one path is more difficult and the other is an easier road with no obstacles and no challenges. No opportunities to confront our fear and grow our faith. If we are being honest with ourselves we can look at this picture above and get an idea which path we are on at this moment in time. We can ask ourselves, “Am I on a path that has obstacles or that challenges or grows my faith? Am I on a path that leads to a truer more confident and bold version of me, an authentic version? Am I choosing to avoid opportunities for growth because I prefer to be on an easy path?”

What does it mean to be pursuing a path of authenticity.  My book series is focused on the discovery of the “Authentic Self”, but what exactly does that mean?

Well our “Authentic Self” is the person or self that God had in mind when he created you. It is the person you were meant to be, doing the tasks you were meant to do, using the talents and skills you were designed to use, with the love you were meant to share. 

Back to fear and emotion.

Being an emergency room physician during this pandemic, one thing that got my attention was the terror in the eyes of people who were waiting for the results of their Covid tests. The variability in reactions was so amazing that I spent most of last spring and summer studying and researching fear and anxiety. The months I spent on the topic culminated in my book, Challenge Your Fear, Empower Your Spirit. It is the third book in the authentic self series and its available right now for .99  on Amazon.   Link is at the end of the post.

The question that sparked all of this research was “Why are some people so calm when they received a positive Covid test and some people burst into tears overwhelmed by fear?

They  would often ask questions like, “Should I change my diet?  What medication can I take?  Aren’t there some vitamins or supplements available to help me?”  The variability in the fear response is amazing and fascinating to witness. It made me think about the people around me and my own response to Covid.

I remember that I was telling my friends that I wasn’t afraid of Covid and I was seeing patients everyday who were Covid positive and some were very sick. Some were so sick that judging by their oxygen levels and their exam, I was pretty sure that they were going to die. I worked all through the summer of 2020 and the fall with no fear at all. It was stressful and exhausting, but nothing that I couldn’t handle. Then, in December of 2020, I got Covid. Three days before Christmas. There were no vaccines available at that time.

I had already heard of at least three emergency room doctors who were admitted to the hospital and one died after being in the ICU for a week on a ventilator. Now here was my test. Honestly for the most part, I wasn’t afraid, even when my own oxygen levels were dwindling. The one thing that made me uncomfortable was one episode when I was climbing some stairs with my mask on and I experienced shortness of breath so severe that I had “air hunger”. It was so intense I wanted to rip off my mask. That was a new experience for me. I had witnessed it a hundred times in severe asthmatics who are on oxygen and breathing treatments. They get so short of breath that they want to rip off their masks because their perception is that it is hindering their breathing instead of helping them. My mask was hindering my breathing but I fought the urge to take it off. That was a “this is real” moment for me.

Death and the “Self”

Our personal fear of death plays a prominent role when it comes to our sense of peace as we go about our lives. Some of that fear is clearly related to our faith and the strength of our convictions. Just recently I came across an article about the fear of death and it was interesting to me what the researchers found was the most important idea when it came to the fear of death in the study subjects. The idea revolved around the “self”. (1)

A recent study at the Journal of Cognitive Science (entitled Death and the Self) revealed a direct link between our sense of “self” and our fear of death.

The research also revealed that Christians fear death far less than atheists, Hindus or Buddhists.

Why? It comes down to a concept described as the “continuity of self,” also defined as a belief in a “persisting self.” It’s the notion that who (and what) you are – your self – “is something that persists from childhood through old age. (You) exist to the extent that (your) self exists.” Perhaps unsurprisingly, if you believe your self has the capacity to transcend your mortal existence, you’re far less likely to fear the end of your mortal existence. The Death and the Self examined the way different worldviews define self, and the impact these definitions have on our fear of death:

https://coldcasechristianity.com/writings/afraid-to-die-youre-probably-not-a-christian/

This study and the idea of the “persisting self” really caught my attention because my book series is focused on the “Authentic Self”, as defined above.

When we have committed to the Christian faith, the idea of a persisting self is a secondary idea, something that we just take for granted. We don’t really even think about it. This is tied to the idea of ELPIS, the greek word for hope. This type of hope is biblical, Christ centered, resurrection-powered hope. It is defined as eager expectation of what is certain.  This is the kind of “hope” that Paul refers to repeatedly in his epistles. It also happens to be a powerful antidote to fear and anxiety.

He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that, having been justified by his grace, we might become heirs having the hope of eternal life. This is a trustworthy saying. And I want you to stress these things, so that those who have trusted in God may be careful to devote themselves to doing what is good. These things are excellent and profitable for everyone. (Titus 3:3-7 NIV)

https://bravethewave.org/2019/02/26/our-hope-is-different/

It is interesting but I am now working on my upcoming book on pain and suffering and the idea of being an heir as a child of God and brother or sister of Christ is a HUGE part of these ideas.

The Power of Hope

I want to focus on two elements of the above verse.   “the hope of eternal life” and “this is a trustworthy saying”.  Paul is speaking of the Greek word for hope. Elpis.

In my first book “Brave the Wave,” I used the analogy of going on a Caribbean cruise,

“I want to focus on hope here, because the hope he’s talking about has a different meaning. He’s thinking of hope in the way we discussed earlier. It’s eager expectation, not wishful thinking. It’s like when you book a vacation or a cruise. When you get to the airport, you have eager expectation. When we go on a cruise, the funniest thing to me are the smiles of people going through the check-in process. Everyone’s happy. You can’t wipe the smiles off their faces. Including mine. It’s elpis—eager expectation. When we’re checking in, we aren’t just wishfully thinking we’re going to board the ship; we have full and eager expectation of boarding“.

“Brave the Wave, Discover and Fully Realize Your Authentic Self”

Biblical hope is essential because we need it to cope. You need hope to cope with the challenges and trials that life throws at us every day. When you have biblical, Christ centered, resurrection powered hope, that is a different animal. That is a different way of thinking. You are transformed.  (See Challenge Your Fear, Empower Your Spirit below.)

In my book Discover Your Passion, Release Your Power, I wrote about two people who faced death, a priest and a very wealthy hospice patient,

“ Let me go over an idea about comfort and discomfort to help us as we are going about trying to fulfill our purpose. Someone once told me a story about an elderly priest who was in the ICU. He was in his late eighties or early nineties and, because of his illness, knew he would die soon. The interesting part of the story was that he was being visited by another priest, and they were laughing and joking like they were waiting in line for a ride at Disneyland. The priest who was dying even made a comment to his visitor, “Ha, I am going to see Jesus before you!!” And they both started laughing. They were both happy, almost joyous. The dying priest was at the end of his life, and he was at maximum comfort, on the verge of being in the presence of Jesus. He most likely spent the majority of his life being uncomfortable going about the business of doing God’s work.

Now we contrast that with a story that a hospice nurse shared with me. She told me about a very wealthy patient she was taking care of. She visited him on his yacht twice per week. Most of the time he had a team of advisors and family in the room while she checked his vital signs and examined him. One day he asked that everyone leave the room because he wanted to talk to her alone. She said that he called her over and told her, “Look, I have plenty of money. I can write a check for whatever you want. There must be some cure for my type of cancer that is not available to everyone. Just let me write you a check so that I can get better.” Thinking about those two scenarios made me realize something. The wealthy man was at maximum discomfort. He was on the edge of the unknown. He was doing everything he could to stay in his life of comfort, luxury, and ease. This life was the closest thing to heaven for him.

Discover Your Passion, Release Your Power

We should not be discouraged by trials, storms, and tribulations because they are the circumstances that God allows in our lives for our spiritual growth. Growth often comes through these means. If we can understand and embrace the idea that comfort is not part of God’s plan for our lives, it will be easier to handle all the difficulties we are inevitably going to face.

As a bonus, feelings of being uncomfortable or fearful when we are being asked to take on a task are a good sign that we are headed in the right direction. God wants our faith to grow. Untested faith is not very useful. Our faith will be tested. You can bet on that.

Looking at all these ideas of hope,fear of death and love of money made me realize that there is one thing worse than death, dying without a thriving, intimate relationship with Jesus. True Christians aren’t afraid of dying, they are afraid of dying without the love of Jesus in their hearts. True Christians are looking forward to seeing him face to face. They have peace because they trust in the promises of God and they believe Jesus when he tells us that he has prepared a wonderful place for us.

“My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am.”

John 14:2-3 NLT

A Toppling of Idols

One of the most reliable ways to measure the depth and strength of our relationship with Jesus is the automatic loss of interest in things of this world. We all have an altar and every one of us has things on the altar. It could be money, a celebrity, self destructive habits, objects or maybe ourselves.

When we grow in our relationship with Jesus, and we place him on the altar, it is almost an automatic or natural process that everything that we previously put on the altar gets toppled or knocked off. For me personally, I used to collect “things”. It doesn’t matter what they were, they had no eternal value. I haven’t bought one of those “things” in 15 years. Why? Because in my mind they have lost their value. They don’t mean anything.

That is related to the idea of replacement. When Jesus comes into your life, and you recognize his importance, everything else is less important. The world becomes less shiny. Less desirable. The thought of dying loses it’s taint of fear and dread because it is something we look forward to.

Looking forward to being in the presence of God and Jesus in a world of peace, joy, love and comfort with no pain and no suffering makes the suffering that we endure in this world seem less foreboding. When we reach this level of “knowing” and understanding, our fear diminishes and our joy, peace and love grow exponentially.

As a result, our fear of death diminishes. But what if we are too scared to live? That is the path on the left in the illustration of the two paths above.  Many times we choose the easy comfortable path with the least amount of obstacles. If we as individuals think about our “authentic self”, the self that God had in mind when he created us, most likely that true, authentic version of us is found by choosing to confront our fear and go down the hard path with the obstacles and challenges. That path leads to a bolder more confident version of who we are at this point in time.

I do need your help though, if you are a fellow Christian believer and would like to help spread this message, please take the time to leave a review on one of my books.   This is the only written review I have for my Challenge Your Fear book that has been on sale for 1 year.

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on November 12, 2022

 

It is clear from the moment of the introduction that Challenge Your Fear Empower Your Spirit was written by a Christian for Christians, and there is plenty of helpful tips that do not involve faith.

One thing I have learned is that this is a huge war we are in as Christians.  We are going to face ridicule, rejection and criticism, just like Jesus did. But we need to stick together and help each other.

What blessings await you when people hate you and exclude you and mock you and curse you as evil because you follow the Son of Man. When that happens, be happy! Yes, leap for joy! For a great reward awaits you in heaven.

(Luke 6:22- 23 NLT)

I’m not asking for money, I just ask that if you buy one of my books, please take 30 seconds of your time to leave a written review that can help to counter some of the anger and hatred that comes when anyone mentions Jesus.

Any help would definitely be appreciated!!

 

 

Here is a link to the Authentic Self series.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08C8KNRFY?ref_=dbs_dp_rwt_sb_tkin&binding=kindle_edition

 

(1)  https://coldcasechristianity.com/writings/afraid-to-die-youre-probably-not-a-christian/ 

 

If you are experiencing persistent symptoms of fatigue, body aches, shortness of breath or brain fog even months after a bout of Covid, you can learn more here,

 

Long Haul Covid: A Medical Emergency?

“The truth doesn’t cost anything, but a lie can destroy everything”

There is one thing that I remember someone saying that really caught my attention, “we lie to ourselves more than we lie to anyone else.”   A statement like that tends to illicit skepticism.  From my own experience, there is clearly a significant amount of truth to that statement.   When we think about lies and the value of truth, it never really hits home until you can clearly see real world examples of the overwhelming destruction and tragedy of how a lie can destroy a legacy and destroy entire families. These are cautionary tales that we can learn from and apply to our own lives because it could easily happen to us. One important point is that when you are trying to conceal the truth and you are trying to keep a secret in the dark, it just keeps growing and growing like a monster in the closet. In order to keep the lie from others, you have to create more deception and more lies. Inevitably, the innocent are the ones who suffer and families and institutions are destroyed in the wake of the truth being revealed.

This type of tragedy is compounded by engaging in willful blindness. We essentially turn a blind eye to our own behavior or the behavior of others, even when we know that what we are doing is wrong. The reason I’m addressing these ideas at this time is because of what has been occurring lately with regard to Christian apologist Ravi Zacharias.

This is a tough topic to discuss, but this has been bothering me for days and I feel compelled to discuss some of these spiritual principles with regard to this situation because it is unique and for me personally somewhat shocking. But I believe that there is much to learn and glean from what has happened and there are many lessons for us to incorporate into our own lives when it comes to self-deception and willful blindness.

Amongst the Christian community at this time, the sex scandal involving Ravi Zacharias is blowing up all over the internet and on You Tube. If you are unaware, Ravi Zacharias was a world famous Christian apologist who evangelized all over the globe and who is the founder of RZIM, Ravi Zacharias International ministries. He died of cancer in May of 2020. To give you an idea of his popularity, Vice-President Mike Pence spoke at his funeral.  Ravi had been speaking and bringing many people to the Christian faith for over forty years.

“An Indian-Canadian convert to Christianity, Zacharias has become one of the best-known living apologists and has authored dozens of books on faith. With almost $24 million in US revenue last year, RZIM sponsors dozens of itinerant preachers and apologists (such as the late Nabeel Qureshi); puts on conferences for Christian leaders; and holds forums on college campuses.”

https://www.christianitytoday.com/news/2017/december/ravi-zacharias-sexting-extortion-lawsuit-doctorate-bio-rzim.html

I personally have read a few of his books and watched his lectures and You Tube videos. He was a very powerful speaker and a very persuasive Christian apologist. He explained philosophical principles of truth and how Christianity is the wisest path for every single person who is looking for answers and for direction in their lives.

Reading about the sex scandal and how he essentially was a sexual predator was extremely disconcerting to me as a believer and as someone who always admired his faith and his ability to explain spiritual principles in a way that I could relate to. I even quoted him in my last book and used a quote of his in my current book that will be published in the next few months. I removed that quote yesterday. There is always something for each of us to learn from the mistakes of others around us. But when spiritual leaders and giants of the faith are toppled, we can learn a great deal and we can also begin to look at our own lives more carefully to avoid the kinds of mistakes that will have an impact on ourselves and our families.

 Background

Ravi has been accused of sexual harrassment and inappropriate and unwanted sexual advances by several massage therapists who worked in two massage parlors co-owned by him. In addition he was involved in a lawsuit with a woman named Lori Ann Thompson who alleged that Ravi initiated a cell phone relationship with her and convinced her to send nude photos of herself to him and engaged in sexual dialogue with her over a period of time in 2016. That lawsuit was settled out of court  with a non-disclosure agreement signed by both parties.  I don’t want to get into too many of the details of the sexual, spiritual and financial abuse that Ravi engaged in because that is not what is important for us. What I want to delve into is the level of self-deception that Ravi  entangled himself in because his behavior and his own distortion of truth was so egregious it bordered on the unbelievable.

In one part of the investigation, one of the massage therapists who Ravi was supporting financially (with donated funds from his ministry) reported that Ravi expected her to have sex with him because of his financial support. She described her encounters with him as rape. In addition she reports that Ravi asked her to pray to God with him.  Here is the report that was commissioned by RZIM to look into the allegations of the abused women.

https://www.courthousenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/zacharias-report.pdf  

One therapist further reported that she was struggling financially, and Mr. Zacharias offered to help pay for her schooling and monthly living expenses in addition to compensating her for the massages (see below in the discussion of Touch of Hope). She told us that “the more we saw each other the more he became comfortable and wanted to go further.” She told us she “felt obligated” to do what he asked because of the financial support he provided. In addition to these direct accounts, these and other witnesses claimed to know or to have heard of Mr. Zacharias’s abuse or attempted abuse of other massage therapists, but we did not credit such hearsay.  Only one of the witnesses we interviewed said that Mr. Zacharias engaged in sexual intercourse. This witness reported details of many encounters over a period of years that she described as rape.

This behavior is totally inconsistent with someone who is speaking globally as a Christian apologist extolling the virtues of a life devoted to Christ. His lectures on truth and love are absolutely compelling. How can he reconcile his behavior with his ministry and his life’s work?    Jesus said,

“Don’t you see that whatever enters the mouth goes into the stomach and then out of the body? But the things that come out of a person’s mouth come from the heart, and these defile them. For out of the heart come evil thoughts—murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander. These are what defile a person; but eating with unwashed hands does not defile them.”

Clearly this is a warning that we should guard our hearts.  What is most fascinating to me about Ravi’s behavior is the grandiose and over the top lie that he told himself and probably told the women he was abusing. He saw himself as someone who was above everyone else and was entitled to engage in depravity because of the work he did for Jesus. It is an absolutely clear example of willful blindness and self-deception but taken to the extreme. When our hearts our overtaken by evil and desires of the flesh, we have no problem inventing lies and creating new ideas that are totally false. Here is an example,

Mr. Zacharias used religious expressions to gain compliance, as she was raised to be a person of faith. She reported that he made her pray with him to thank God for the “opportunity” they both received. She said he called her his “reward” for living a life of service to God, and he referenced the “godly men” in the Bible with more than one wife. She said he warned her not ever to speak out against him or she would be responsible for the “millions of souls” whose salvation would be lost if his reputation was damaged. 

Notice how he used worldly ideas and attributed them to God. His “reward” for living a life of service was that Ravi was entitled to commit the sin of adultery with multiple women and he was granted sexual rewards for his work.  He has essentially created his own religion. He had made himself a god and totally ignored scripture that says that those who are involved in ministry and who are leaders of the church are actually held to a much higher standard of behavior than the people being evangelized. Also we can see this behavior as a  huge warning for all of us when it comes to the danger of entitlement.

Jesus warned us about leading others to sin,

“If anyone causes one of these little ones–those who believe in me–to stumble, it would be better for them if a large millstone were hung around their neck and they were       thrown into the sea.      Mark 9:42

We also know from scripture that leaders and teachers of the faith are held to a higher standard of behavior,

 Not many of you should become teachers, my fellow believers, because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly.

James 3:1

An elder must be blameless, faithful to his wife, a man whose children believe and are not open to the charge of being wild and disobedient.  Since an overseer manages God’s household, he must be blameless—not overbearing, not quick-tempered, not given to drunkenness, not violent, not pursuing dishonest gain.  Rather, he must be hospitable, one who loves what is good, who is self-controlled, upright, holy and disciplined.  He must hold firmly to the trustworthy message as it has been taught, so that he can encourage others by sound doctrine and refute those who oppose it.

Titus 1:5-9

Ramifications

This post is not about pointing fingers and judging men of faith or about gossip and sensationalism. Why am I choosing to write about this topic at this time?  Because of the mixed bag of emotions many of us in the Christian community are feeling.   There is anger and sadness because of  the spiritual and sexual abuse  that innocent victims endured. They were massage therapists doing their jobs just trying to make a living. Many of them were women of faith who were confused that such a great  man of faith was doing this to them.   At the same time there is  empathy for Ravi’s wife, his son, his daughters and his grandchildren. They are the innocent victims of one man’s sexual desire totally overtaking his life. This has impacted hundreds of people.   They are removing his books, videos and are dropping his name from the ministry. His entire family is shattered. Here is an excerpt from their statement,

It is with shattered hearts that we issue this statement about the allegations against RZIM’s Founder, Ravi Zacharias.
Following allegations made in late August of 2020 that Ravi had engaged in sexual misconduct and abuse in connection with two day spas, we commissioned Miller & Martin PLLC, a law firm with experience in corporate and sex crimes investigations, to conduct an independent investigation. The findings of this investigation and their public release will be devastating to Ravi’s wife, son, and daughters, and to his entire family. Our hearts are broken for them, and we grieve with the weight of being part of this unimaginable pain. We pray for the Zacharias family and mourn with them in this time of severe loss. It is our hope that they will receive the healing and restoration that God alone can provide.

Over the past few weeks I’ve been watching commentary from Christian leaders and apologists who felt the need to chime in and address this issue. It is clearly a huge black eye when it comes to the Christian apologist community. The responses have been scathing and much of them rightfully are loaded with anger and disgust. The one thing that keeps coming up in my mind is that this man spent forty years of hard work, blood and sweat to carefully and diligently build an effective and successful ministry. But it was destroyed by self-deception, a sense of entitlement, and a willingness to allow the desire of lust and sin to dominate his life. In the wake of his deceit, he has totally destroyed his legacy and created a world of shame, pain and suffering for the people he loved and valued most, his wife, his son and daughters and his grandchildren.

Self-Assessment

This is why spending time in the Word is so important. One of my favorite descriptions of the bible is when it is described as a mirror.

For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror. For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like. But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing.
James 1:23-25

This is why the pursuit of truth is so important. This is why humility and a teachable attitude and the constant pursuit of wisdom and knowledge is so important. Let us not waste the pain that this entire ministry is undergoing and try to learn from the mistakes Ravi made. If we value our spouses and our children, we will examine our own lives looking for areas of self-deception. We will look for areas of pride or entitlement. This is a cautionary tale for anyone who calls themselves a Christian because clearly we have a responsibility to be a light to the world. Much of Ravi’s behavior was about concealment, hiding and lying, as the above report will attest to. This is the time to look at our own behavior. The pain that Ravi inflicted on so many people is overwhelming. We should do what we can to spread truth, be humble and more importantly,examine our own lives and behavior so as to avoid the kind of mistakes that could destroy our lives or the lives of the people we love most.

                 

     1 % Of The Population Experiences  “Profound” Love

Boom.  What if that statement is true?   A question came up the other day when I was discussing spiritual growth with someone and how we can recognize if we are growing spiritually. The question was,  “what does it mean to have “profound love”? This phrase or idea was used as a descriptor of the highest levels of spiritual growth. The top. The absolute ceiling of what we are capable of as humans when it comes to our relationship with Jesus and with other people. Let’s look at the word “profound” for one second so we can get an idea what we are talking about. When we look at the synonyms for “profound” we find, heartfelt, intense, keen, great, extreme, sincere, deep, overpowering, radical, overwhelming and fervent. 

Love Equals Time

Looking at some of these ideas made me think about how we measure things such as love, devotion, faith or obedience. How would you measure your love for your spouse? How about your child? How can you tell if your love grows and gets stronger and more “profound”? One thing we know is that love is invisible, until we see action. Our actions are a reliable indicator of whether or not our love is “profound”. It can be seen in how we spend our time and what we do with that time.

Someone may say, “I know that I have a profound love for Jesus.”  Well, is this love evident in our actions and in our priorities? These are questions that I am aiming at myself. How about a “profound” love and compassion for other people? Am I exhibiting “overpowering, radical” love in my actions at work or at home? When I ask myself these types of questions, it makes me realize the pain of truth. Truth burns and truth hurts. But it also burns away all the lies that we tell ourselves when we create a self that is false.  So in essence it leaves us with truth and our authentic self, which is exactly what we are after.

But what is our authentic self?  How can it be defined ?

Our authentic self is the image or vision that God had in mind when He created us.  It is who we were meant to be, doing what we were meant to do, using the gifts we were meant to use, with the love we were meant to share.  The key to getting there is a growing thriving relationship with Jesus. We can’t know ourselves and be who we are until we know who He is.

All of these ideas came about because I am in the middle of the editing process on my third book. It’s main focus is on overcoming fear and  breaking out of complaceny on the road to fulfilling our purpose.  The writing process is complete,  but just recently I came across some research and statistics that really grabbed my attention and I felt compelled to incorporate some of these ideas into the book. These ideas are supported by cold hard data.  The kind of data and statistics that are rare and hard to find.

The Barna research group acquired this data over a period of six years conducting surveys  on spirituality, Christianity and spiritual growth. All the data and statistics are summarized in the book Maximum Faith. Based on surveys looking at over 15,000 adults, the researchers concluded that there are 10 spiritual “stops” on the spiritual growth journey.

Faith With No Direction Or Meaning

Before we look at the 10 spiritual stops, I want to include an excerpt from “Maximum Faith” that is quite startling to consider as we go through some of these ideas. Here is an excerpt from the introduction of my new book,

As we are looking at the ideas of fear and complacency, we are going to use statistics and data supplied by the Barna research group because this data is unique, powerful and compelling. The Barna group collected and compiled data gleaned from surveys over a six year period that involved over 15,000 people. From the data we have found that:

More than 100 million American adults who describe themselves as Christian contend that despite their commitment to God they are still searching for clarity regarding their purpose in life. Tens of millions of self-described Christians feel unfulfilled in life, admit they lack direction, and are disappointed that their faith has not produced the kind of meaning and identity they need, and question whether their life makes a difference.

George Barna- “Maximum Faith”

From a statistical view of things, we know that if we have 15,000 subjects as part of the analysis, there is real power in that study. From my experience in medicine, if there are 15,000 people in a study, pay attention. It means that the data is powerful.
Looking at these numbers makes me realize that there are large groups of people who are going about their lives in their Christian faith, still searching for clarity and purpose. Millions upon millions of Christians:

1. Feel unfulfilled
2. Lack direction
3. Are seeking meaning
4. Are seeking identity
5. Are looking to make a difference

This was somewhat startling to me. We are not talking about people who have no faith, we are talking about believing Christians who are going to church and are involved in faith based activities. I have used the analogy of the  “walking dead” as far as unbelievers who are going about their lives with no aim or purpose and I have discussed the futility and danger of living our lives in such a way.  The problem is that the data is telling us that believers are going through the same type of behavior with no fulfillment, no direction, no meaning and wondering if their lives make a difference. Why is this happening?

The Ten Spiritual Stops

Hold on to your hat because we haven’t even gotten to the 10 stops of spiritual growth yet. This is when it gets really interesting. Just a warning, I showed these numbers to a couple of people just to get an idea of what they thought and they immediately began to look at themselves to see where they were on the “spiritual spectrum.”   These stops and numbers are not listed to guilt or shame anyone into anything.  They are just to give us an idea of where we are and to give us an idea of where we should be heading. I know from my own experience, I am no where near the highest levels of spiritual growth, but I believe a list like this is helpful because it allows us to aim for something greater than where we are now. In essence, what we are looking for is an authentic, loving, more Christ like version of ourselves. It is a vision of ourselves that God has in mind.

Looking at these stops or steps made me realize, I got a long, long way to go.

1.    Ignorance of the concept of or existence of sin (1 percent of the population)

2.    Aware of and indifferent to sin (16 percent of adults)

3.    Concerned about the implication of sin (39 percent of adults)

4.    Confess sin and ask Jesus to be their savior (9 percent of adults)

5.    Commit to faith activities (24 percent of adults)

6.    Prolonged period of spiritual discontent (6 percent of adults)

7.    Experience personal brokenness (3 percent of adults)

8.    Surrender/Submission to God (1 percent of adults)

9.    Profound love/intimacy with God/Jesus (.5 percent of adults)

10.    Profound Love and compassion for people (.5 percent of adults)

Just for convenience and to help us get our minds around these numbers, let’s put these categories into groups and look at the size of the population.

Group A    Ignorance of the concept of sin and aware of and indifferent to sin  (17 percent of the population)

Group B    Concerned about the implication of sin    (39 percent of the population)

Group C    Confess sin, accept Jesus and commit to faith activities    (33 percent of the population)

Group D    Prolonged period of spiritual discontent and experience personal brokenness   (9 percent of population)

Group E    Surrender/submission to God, profound love for God/Jesus and profound love and compassion for people (2 percent of the population)

Just to reiterate, these numbers are not to guilt or shame anyone, but they are rather stunning if you look at the groups.  If we stop to think about ourselves and our family and friends, it isn’t that hard to be able to categorize people who you know and love. Also, if you believe there is value in spiritual growth and in growing in intimacy with Jesus, you will take special notice of the word “profound”. Not only that, the numbers are screaming to us that it is extremely difficult to get to the highest levels of love, if this were not so, more people would be reaching this level.

Here are the synonyms again, heartfelt, intense, keen, great, extreme, sincere, deep, overpowering, radical, overwhelming and fervent.

Here is some commentary I found about this data that I thought was quite fascinating,

  Most Americans, according to the research, never get beyond stop three (awareness and concern about sin and its effects, but not cooperating with Christ to alleviate that problem). Among those who become “born again Christians,” most never move past stop five (i.e., having invited Christ to be their savior and then engaging in a lot of religious activity). In other words, a majority of the American public never reaches the second half of the stops on the journey to wholeness. Barna also determined that most church programs are designed to help people get to stop five of the journey but not to move farther down the road to Christ-likeness.

https://www.patheos.com/blogs/robertricciardelli/faith/god-transforming-lives-a-10-stop-journey-by-george-barna/

If you are one of the 100 million Americans who describe themselves as Christian, but who feel unfulfilled and lack direction or are still trying to find meaning, looking at data like this can help you to move forward in your faith.  The whole point is that everyone is at a different point in their spiritual life and in their spiritual growth. Clearly the majority of the population (56 percent) are concerned about sin or are indifferent to sin, but don’t feel the need to do anything about it or don’t see the value in committing to Jesus. As we grow in our faith and we have a better understanding of the value that Christ brings to our lives, it is incumbent on us to share our testimony.   Either way, wherever we are on the spiritual growth stop list, we all have work to do.

If you have read my books Brave the Wave and Discover Your Passion, Release Your Power, there is a focus on self-examination and self-awareness because they are absolutely critical on the path towards authenticity. In my next book on overcoming fear and breaking out of complacency toward growth, the emphasis is still on self-awareness, but there is also a focus on personal responsibility. It is the attitude of “it’s on me.”  That is a clear prerequisite to overcoming our fear and breaking through complacency. If we don’t closely examine our own behavior and then compare and contrast it with the perfect model of the life of Jesus, there is no growth, no power, no passion, no direction, no meaning and no hope of getting to a place that brings peace and love to ourselves and our families.  If we want all of these, it truly is on us.

Here is a link to the books in the Authentic Self Series,  Challenge Your Fear, Empower Your Spirit ,  (Transform from worrier to warrior in the power of the Authentic Self).

I do need your help though, if you are a fellow Christian believer and would like to help spread this message, please take the time to leave a review on one of my books.   This is the only written review I have for my Challenge Your Fear book that has been on sale for 1 year.

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on November 12, 2022

 

It is clear from the moment of the introduction that Challenge Your Fear Empower Your Spirit was written by a Christian for Christians, and there is plenty of helpful tips that do not involve faith.

One thing I have learned is that this is a huge war we are in as Christians.  We are going to face ridicule, rejection and criticism, just like Jesus did. But we need to stick together and help each other.

What blessings await you when people hate you and exclude you and mock you and curse you as evil because you follow the Son of Man. When that happens, be happy! Yes, leap for joy! For a great reward awaits you in heaven.

(Luke 6:22- 23 NLT)

I’m not asking for money, I just ask that if you buy one of my books, please take 30 seconds of your time to leave a written review that can help to counter some of the anger and hatred that comes when anyone mentions Jesus.

Also, if you are currently experiencing persistent symptoms of fatigue, body aches, brain fog, or shortness of breath even months after a bout of Covid, you can learn more here,

Long Haul Covid: A Medical Emergency?

 

                                  An Idea That Overcomes Fear

Can you think of any characters in the bible who lived a life of comfort and ease with no trouble or trials ? If you stop to think about it, there are a couple of examples. We will come back to this idea in a second. When we think about the idea of  fear, trials and troubles, it can be helpful to stop and think about ideas themselves. Ideas are alive. They have a pulse. They can change your life and they can change your destiny. Facts are dead. They don’t move people in the way that ideas do. Bill Gates had an idea of a computer on every desktop. He says he came up with the idea in the mid 1970s. That idea made him one of the richest men in the world and it also changed the entire world. I’m benefitting from his idea at this very moment as I type these words out on the Microsoft Word program.
If we think about comfort, ease and suffering, one idea that is powerful that I’m sure you’ve heard before is, “God allowed Jesus to suffer, why do we think we get a pass? Are we more special than Jesus?”  This idea is helpful when we are going through a tough time because, if we want to get to know Jesus in a more deep and intimate way, we are going to have to suffer and we are going to have to overcome fear.  That is part of the deal.

For you have been given not only the privilege of trusting in Christ but also the privilege of suffering for him.
Phillipians 1:29 NLT
Now this is a very powerful idea. It is a “privilege” to suffer for Christ. What if that is true? It sure does change your perspective if you feel that what you are doing for your faith and for Jesus is causing pain or suffering or you feel that you are wasting your time.

We’re Human Avoiders

One idea that is helpful because it’s true is that life is hard and life is suffering. If you have lived any length of time you are very well aware of this fact. Life is suffering and it is tainted by evil.  It really doens’t make any difference how smart you are or what you do for a living or what you believe, you will suffer. There is no question about that and it really doesn’t matter what you believe or what your faith is.  The sooner we learn to deal with that idea and the sooner our children learn to embrace that idea, the better we feel, because they are more prepared to face life.  Whenever you face a task that you know is going to be difficult, is it better to go into it saying  “this is going to be really hard”   or “this should be really easy”?

The most painful experiences I have had involve going into a task thinking that task would be easy.  Starting a business and getting it to profitability was just such a task.  We live on a broken fallen world that is full of evil, sin and suffering, that is just a fact.
This brings us to a very important question. If life is suffering and we were born to suffer and we know that it is a privilege to suffer for Jesus, why are safety, comfort, ease and luxury our idols?  Why is there so much focus on safety, comfort and ease ?

There is no reason to feel guilty, we just need to understand that we are not human beings, we are human avoiders. That is the essence of our natural selves. It’s in our DNA. We seek safety and we seek to avoid pain.  Those are natural survival instincts and we shouldn’t be ashamed of them.  Avoiding pain and discomfort is one of our strongest motivators,  It’s even more powerful than the instinct to seek pleasure. What we should be doing is focusing on how to overcome those natural instincts in order to grow and develop into our authentic selves, the selves God had in mind for us.

Comfort Can’t Be King

Let’s go back to the question of who in the bible had a life of comfort, ease and safety.  There are two people who did.
 The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it.  And the Lord God commanded the man, “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden;
(Genesis 2:15-16 NLT)
Adam and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame.
(Genesis 2:25 NLT)

So here we have Adam and Eve walking around the garden of Eden, naked with plenty of fruit and animals and livestock and everything you could ever want. They were walking around with no shame and no guilt. Comfortable. No fear. The “good life.” Is there any other character in the bible you can think of that had it this easy?  If you can come up with anyone who had it this easy, please email me at bravethewaveweride@gmail.com.

What is the point of this idea?  We know that Eve ate the forbidden fruit. She was told by the serpent that she would be like God if she did. God gave Adam and Eve everything that they needed including safety, comfort, and ease.  What happened? They blew it.  No surprise here. Can you see why God can’t give us safety, comfort, and ease?  We will blow it.  I know that I do when I have too much safety, comfort, and ease, I get lazy and slothful. I become an avoider. Not good. No Bueno.

Life isn’t supposed to be easy or comfortable. The closer we get to Jesus, the more discomfort we will have to endure. That is just the nature of the Christian life. Especially if you take on goals that involve the Kingdom of God. I was listening to an audiobook the other day and the narrator said, “only a blessed very few get to be martyrs.”  Stop and think about that. It is an honor and a privilege to give your life for Jesus.  We may not be put in a position to be a martyr, but we can all live for Jesus. We can live and work to introduce others to him and tell everyone we can about what he brings to the table.
If you are interested in overcoming fear, trials and troubles, you are going to have to incorporate some ideas into your head that help you see that clinging to safety, comfort and ease is actually more dangerous than facing your own fears. Especially if we are not pursuing passion or purpose.  If we are comparing risk, what is more dangerous, temporary or eternal consequences?

When we think about safety, ease and comfort, these are temporary ideas. Right? What does it matter if we live a life of comfort and ease for 80 or 90 years, but then spend an eternity separated from God and totally overwhelmed with regret?

Regret is a horrible world we can create for ourselves in our later years if we have done nothing with the talent and gifts that God has bestowed on us. We need to understand and appreciate the very real danger in standing pat. If we are Christians, we miss out on wonderful experiences by not putting any effort into growing spiritually.  When we make complacency our king instead of Jesus, we engage in the zombie walk. The arms outstretched grasping at air kind of walk where there is no thinking, no movement, no growth and no emphasis on true value.

So what is the take home here?  To be honest, I’m emphasizing this point for my own edification just as much as to drive home a point that needs to be highlighted.  Anything of value or of worth is going to be hard. Very hard.  Especially if it involves bringing anyone else to Jesus or strengthening or furthering the Kingdom of God.  God doesn’t need us. It is an absolute honor and privilege to serve alongside Jesus in furthering this message. It practically guarantees that you will suffer and that you will have to confront your fear, deemphasize comfort, forgo easy, and forget about safety. This is a hard sell, but it’s absolute truth.

 Frontline Covid Report

In my own urgent care and in the emergency rooms I am working in, we are seeing a definite spike in covid cases. Brothers and sisters, please get your flu shots. If we have a “twindemic” with covid and a hard tough flu season, there will be much suffering and much pain. We must remain steadfast and focus on the things that don’t change, those being the love that Jesus has for us and the purpose and plan he has for us.

Be careful and God bless you !!

Your brother in Christ

Johnny

 

Update        Discover Your Passion, Release Your Power is now available on audible.   If you would like a promo code to buy the audible version at a reduced price, please email me at    bravethewaveweride@gmail.com.

I would appreciate any reviews.

 

  Why Do We Need Guidance Every Day ? Because Our Judgement Sucks

Many people think they are wise and make good decisions most of the time. Some people understand that they need guidance every day because they are human and they know they screw up all the time. That would be me.  I constantly seek guidance and direction because I know that if I don’t, I’m going to make bad decisions. I’m going to make a bad choice because of being selfish, prideful, in a hurry or just plain lazy.  These are the main culprits that interfere with my decisions. Many times I choose what is easy or convenient. We all do. That is why we need guidance and wisdom.

The Hard Road is the Best Road

Most of the time, when it comes to doing the right thing, that usually means doing the thing that is the most difficult. The road with the most obstacles and challenges is the road that leads to wisdom,maturity and clarity. Jesus talked about this,

“Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.”

Matthew 7:9-14  NIV

Jesus also said in Matthew 6:34 that each day has enough trouble of its own. “Do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.”   Think about that phrase, “its own trouble”? Like, what is today? Monday. Okay, there’s Tuesday trouble. Guess what? There’s Wednesday trouble. Then there is Thursday’s trouble and on and on. That is why we need guidance every day. Every day brings its own trouble.

Even Experts Make Mistakes

When it comes to faulty judgement, we don’t have to search hard to find examples that give us a clear idea why guidance is so important. Just off the top of my head I can think of three examples:

Bruce Springsteen almost threw away the recordings for his first breakthrough album “Born to Run.” He had to be convinced to release that album. Part of his reason for not wanting to release the album was fear. This is a good example to seek guidance and don’t let your fear stand in the way of your purpose. Here is the interview in it’s entirety.

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/bruce-springsteen-on-making-born-to-run-we-went-to-extremes-50232/

When you heard a mastered version of the album, you hated it and threw it into a pool. You’ve said the truth is that you were afraid. What were you afraid of?
“I’ve always had a bit of an ambivalent attitude towards… what was I afraid of? Change, I don’t know [laughs]. Also, it was a moment when your music was the totality of your identity, and so you were so caught up and so invested in it. Part of what made the record good is that we went to extremes to structure it and compose it and play it in this very detailed and drive-yourself-crazy fashion. I hadn’t listened to it in about 20 years or so, and I recently listened to it because we remastered it and I said, “Wow.” It held up really well, because it was just structured and built like a tank. It was indestructible, and that came from an enormous amount of time that we put in, an unhealthy amount of obsessive-compulsiveness. So part of it was, I was afraid of releasing the record and just saying, “Well, this is who I am,” for all the obvious reasons that people are afraid of exposure and putting themselves out there: This is who I am, this is everything I know, this is my best, this is the best I can do right now.”

Stephen King’s first breakthrough book was Carrie. He had thrown away a first draft manuscript in the trash and his wife pulled it out and looked at it and convinced Stephen that this was a good manuscript and he should finish the book.

https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/53235/how-stephen-kings-wife-saved-carrie-and-launched-his-career

When King started, he typed three single-spaced pages, crumpled them up in anger, and dumped them in the trashcan. He was disappointed in himself. His critics were right—he couldn’t write from a woman’s perspective. The whole story disgusted him, too. Carrie White was an annoying, ready-made victim. Worse yet, the plot was already moving too slowly, which meant the finished product would be too long for any magazine.
“I couldn’t see wasting two weeks, maybe even a month, creating a novella I didn’t like and wouldn’t be able to sell,” King wrote in his memoir On Writing. “So I threw it away … After all, who wanted to read a book about a poor girl with menstrual problems?”
The next day, Tabby went to empty the trash in the laundry room and found three crinkled balls of paper. She reached in, brushed off a coat of cigarette ashes, and unwrinkled the pages. When King came home from work, she still had them.
“You’ve got something here,” she said. “I really think you do.” Over the next few weeks, Tabby guided her husband through the world of women, giving tips on how to mold the characters and the famous shower scene. Nine months later, King had polished off the final draft.

Just yesterday I was watching a documentary about future baseball hall of fame pitcher Roy Halladay. He died in a plane accident while flying over water in the Gulf of Mexico off the Florida coast.  Witnesses report that he was flying low over the water and doing dangerous tricks.  https://abcnews.go.com/GMA/video/video-shows-moments-roy-halladay-plane-crash-51035147
The one thing that got my attention was the comment his father made in an interview. His father got Roy interested in flying  at an early age, he did not regret that decision but he said that he regretted “Roy’s decision to fly that low and I’m pretty sure Roy regrets that decision too.”    Sometimes our bad judgement has an impact on those around us. Roy left behind a wife and two young boys.

Seek Wisdom Outside of Yourself

We need a source of guidance and wisdom that is outside of ourselves.  We can’t follow our hearts because our hearts are wrong a lot of the time.  Even when it comes to our passions.  Bruce Springsteen is a musician. Stephen King is a writer. Roy Halladay loved flying airplanes. These men were engaged in their passions creating or engaging in the thing they loved most, but their judgement was off.

When I was in medical school, I remember something that a professor once said that I repeat often when a consultant or a colleague wants to go in a direction that I think is unwise in the care of a patient, “Smart doctors, dumb doctors, the best doctors are the ones that are the most careful.”  I would have to add that the smart doctors are the ones who are the most humble and the most willing to ask for help when they need it. I’ve seen pride that ends up killing a patient. It’s real.

The Guidance That Counts

When it comes to our source for wisdom, guidance and direction, it all begins in the Word. It is the primary way that God speaks to us. From there we can seek great teachers or good books to help us find answers to the questions we have. But we start with good questions.  Starting in the morning with a quiet time with Jesus in prayer and in the Word will help you make good decisions. Being humble and willing to listen for guidance is the beginning of wisdom. We have to keep in mind that God loves us. He wants what is best for us. We just need to be patient and willing to work to find the valuable guidance we need for every situation. The one thing that we need to be wary of is the idea to  “follow your heart.”

The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick, who can understand it?
Jeremiah 17:9

When Human Advice Has Value

If we rely on God and ask for His guidance,  we may still stumble and there may still be failure and we are going to fail, but we know and have faith that in the end, it was for our own good and betterment.   God loves us.  Jesus loves us. The Holy Spirit guides us.  They are looking out for our best interests.

It is reasonable to ask people for advice but we should start with experience.  We should find people who have experience with the type of situations we are involved in.  Then the next step is to find people who have experience and who also love and care about us.  There is value in guidance that comes from experience and in guidance that comes from a place of unconditional love.  If someone you love is telling you to do something or advising you, most likely it is advice that has a solid base.  Sometimes you need someone who cares about you and who is outside the bubble of your experience to be objective when they give you advice. In other words, they can see things from a birds eye view and have a better understanding of the situation you are involved in. (See Bruce Springsteen and Stephen King examples above)

The Value of Our Faith

One thing we always forget and take for granted is the supernatural power available to us. We are involved in the ministry of the Spirit.

 Such confidence we have through Christ before God. Not that we are competent in ourselves to claim anything for ourselves, but our competence comes from God. He has made us competent as ministers of a new covenent- not of the letter but of the Spirit, for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.
2 Corinthians 3:4-6 NIV

When it comes to our passion and purpose, these are gifts given to us by the grace of God. If we ignore them then we are ignoring our gifts.

It is my belief that “Works”  are  “can’t not” propositions and “only I” propositions.   But they arise out of our unique God given gifts of Passion and Purpose. They are gifts of God’s grace.  Grace is undeserved favor. If we ignore our passion and purpose we ignore HIS grace.   It’s kind of like if your parents bought you a brand new car when you graduated from college and when you moved to another city to start your new job, you just left the shiny, new car in the garage.
– Discover Your Passion, Release Your Power

We have to tap into the supernatural power available to us by the Holy Spirit and by our faith. We have tools, energy, wisdom and guidance available to us at all times. We are in a battle and there are weapons sitting on the table. If we don’t spend time in prayer and in the Word, we are fighting with human, natural weapons. Those aren’t very effective when it comes to a ministry of the Spirit and spiritual warfare.

Jesus Brings Value

As I have written in my books, I spend a fair amount of time watching debates between atheists and Christians on  topics of objective morality, the existence of God, the reliability of the Gospels and the Resurrection. These are wonderful learning experiences because the people who are engaging in these debates are experts on the New Testament, theology and philosophy. One of the atheist debaters who I’ve seen many times is Sam Harris. He is a New York Times best selling author and staunch atheist.

It was fascinating to hear something the other day that Sam said in an interview, “It’s no surprise, atheism is not a philosophy, atheism is nothing. Clearly there is a hunger for wisdom that the secular community has not been answering in any kind of reliable way. Atheism doesn’t give you anything that makes you live a meaningful life.”

Here is a link to that interview.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ToAWzBGSYo0&t=495s   

Sam is saying is:

1. Atheism is nothing
2. Atheism does nothing to help quench your hunger for wisdom
3. Atheism brings nothing to the table to help you finding meaning in your life

It is nothing and offers nothing.  My question is, if atheism is nothing and offers nothing, why promote and defend it so vigorously? Where is the value?

Here is the bottom line. Our faith is the exact opposite. Christianity is everything. Jesus is everything.
Why follow Jesus?  He brings a tremendous amount of value to the table. These are just a few examples:

1. He is the most powerful man who ever lived
2. He suffered more than any human being ever has,  for us
3. He loves us more than any human being ever could
4. He offers us the hope of salvation (our sins are forgiven)
5. He is the most humble person who ever lived
6. He is the smartest person who ever lived
7. He is the only person who was ever bodily resurrected to eternal life
8. He gives us a purpose and gives meaning to our lives
9. He has prepared a place for us that is beyond our wildest imaginations
10. He guides us and helps us with our decisions and our choices because he wants what is best for us

We have to tell others about all the value that Jesus brings to the table, if not for the simple reason that we want to be acknowledged by him before God.
“Whoever acknowledges me before others, I will also acknowledge before my Father in heaven.”
Matthew 10:32  NIV

I  would like to extend the offer for a free copy of my new book, “Discover Your Passion, Release Your Power:How to Fulfill Your Purpose in the power of the Authentic Self” in any form you would like. If you would like an advance review paperback copy, email your home address to bravethewaveweride@gmail.com. If you would like a pdf or kindle version of the book just email the request to bravethewaveweride@gmail.com and I will send it to you. I am hoping to get some reviews for the book. Any help with those reviews would be greatly appreciated. Also, if you know any other people in the family of believers that are having a particularly tough time during this pandemic, please forward this email to them.

I still have only one review for my book and it isn’t great.   Satan 1    Johnny 0
Any help with reviews would be greatly appreciated!!

Your Brother in Christ

Johnny

bravethewaveweride@gmail.com
bravethewave.org

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                   The Critical First Steps to Conquering Fear  

“Each of us must confront our own fears, must come face to face with them. How we handle our fears will determine where we go with the rest of our lives. To experience adventure or to be limited by the fear of it.”
–Judy Blume

Controlled by Emotion ?

How you deal with your fear will determine the quality of your experiences and the value you create in your life. If we want our lives to have meaning for ourselves and our families, we are going to have to consider these ideas and decide on how to act on them.  Right now, we are all in a kind of state of negativity. Pessimism. There are riots and people are dying and parents are scared about sending their children to school. Colleges are trying to figure out what to do about classes and football seasons.  There is one big cloud that is just wafting over all of us. That cloud is uncertainty. The unknown. The fear of what could be. What do you do when you are paralyzed by fear?  What do you do when you are afraid to go outside of your house?  How can we get confidence ?  How can we control our fear?
One place we can start is to recognize that fear is an emotion. You can feel fear or you can feel sad or you can feel happy or you can feel joy. Are any of those feelings going to kill you ? No.  So why let a feeling rule, control or dominate your thinking, your goals or your actions?  Is there any value in that?  Not likely.

Thought Control 

Pay attention because this is very very important. At baseline, right now, most of us are being totally dominated in our own minds by a bias of negativity.  The majority of our thoughts are negative and pessimistic. You have a negative bent in your thinking right now just sitting there reading this. That is a critical point to understand on your way to controlling your thoughts.

  Even though people claim to hold themselves in high regard, the thoughts that spontaneously occur to them—their “mental chatter,” so to speak—is mostly (up to 70%) negative, a phenomenon that could be referred to as negativity dominance. Negativity dominance suggests that there is a disconnect between how people respond to questions about how well they are doing relative to their peers, how rosy their future is, and the extent to which they wield control over their outcomes—all of which exhibit a distinct positivity bias—and how they actually feel, deep down in their sub-conscious, about their life. Deep down, it turns out that people are much more self-critical, pessimistic, and fearful than they let out in their conscious thoughts.
  https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/sapient-nature/201310/how-negative-is-your-mental-chatter
Hey, I’m in the same boat. The hardest part of all this is to recognize that we are in a battle. A war. The war is within our own minds. We are our own worst enemy. We start to feel hopeless and helpless. Remember one thing, one of the primary weapons that Satan uses is fear.  When we face our fear, we are engaging in spiritual warfare. We are fighting for what is good and we are focusing on value.  If we give in to our fear, and we let it dominate our lives, we are letting evil win and we are also not being an example to those around us. If we love our family members and the people around us,  facing our fears and being an example of courage inspires them.   When we act by facing our fear,  we model strength and confidence.  This allows them to feel stronger,more confident and more sure of themselves.  Who doesn’t want that for their families?  In the same way, if we model timidity and inaction, just by proximity, they will feel timid and uninspired.

“For God has not given us a spirit of fear and timidity, but of power, love, and self-discipline.”
2 Timothy 1:7 NIV

Keep in mind that if we choose fear and timidity, we are ignoring our spirits and we are ignoring our authentic selves. The selves God had in mind when he created us. We are living lives that are inauthentic and fake. We are hurting ourselves, and just as important, we are hurting the people we love most by NOT being the examples that God had in mind for us. So where do we start?   We get control of our thoughts. Now.  We learn how to discipline our minds. Here is a good blog post to get you started.
   https://bravethewave.org/2020/03/12/control-your-thoughts-control-your-anxiety/

Garbage In, Garbage Out  

Another place to look is our intake of news and social media feeds. Listen, we need to be smarter and try to understand that the news media, news programs and websites, social media platforms, and television programs have one thing in mind.  They need eyeballs, ratings and clicks.  They need you to engage. If you ignore them, they lose money and they are out of business. They absolutely need your attention.
We really should stop and think about our own habits when it comes to news shows and websites and what kind of information we are allowing into our brains. This article tells us that social media has an effect on our sense of well-being and tends to move us toward depression. It also sends our brains into comparing mode. We begin to compare our lives to the lives of others which has a horrible effect on our own sense of gratitude.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/alicegwalton/2017/06/30/a-run-down-of-social-medias-effects-on-our-mental-health/#22f2f2c52e5a

This article goes on to point out that even if we feel that we are doing better than someone else, it has a negative effect on our mental health.
 Part of the reason Facebook makes people feel socially isolated (even though they may not actually be) is the comparison factor. We fall into the trap of comparing ourselves to others as we scroll through our feeds, and make judgements about how we measure up. One study looked at how we make comparisons to others posts, in “upward” or “downward” directions—that is, feeling that we’re either better or worse off than our friends. It turned out that both types of comparisons made people feel worse, which is surprising, since in real life, only upward comparisons (feeling another person has it better than you) makes people feel bad. But in the social network world, it seems that any kind of comparison is linked to depressive symptoms.
When we think about comparisons this could be related to our identities. When we are heavily engaged in social media, we tend to adopt a variety of identities, all of which have the potential to be false or inauthentic.  I have focused on the “false” or inauthentic self in my books that involve the “near death experience”.  In those illustrations, the function of the near death experience is to point out a “false self” because it is something to be avoided.  When it comes to trying to get control of our fear,  if we are embracing an identity that is false, this type of identity can possibly create dissonance, fear and a sense of ill-being, not well being.

Gratitude Is HUGE  

The social media studies above show us that comparing ourselves either in a positive or negative way to others from the standpoint of social media results in pessimism regardless if we see ourselves in a positive or negative light.   That is absolutely amazing to me.  I never knew that. As I have mentioned before, when it comes to controlling fear, gratitude is absolutely essential.  You can’t be truly grateful and afraid at the same time.  You also can’t be genuinely grateful and angry at the same time either.   Gratitude brings peace. Peace is something that we all need.

https://bravethewave.org/2019/12/12/the-key-to-unlock-peace/

So one step to conquering fear is to start out our day with gratitude.  We should be grateful for our blessings. Don’t compare yourself to your friends or someone on social media, focus on the blessings that God has given you.  Automatically, your sense of well being will improve.  So will your sense of peace.

The Vicious News Cycle 

What about the news?  Look at some excerpts from an article on how watching the news, tends to make us more negative and pessimistic.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-modern-brain/201909/how-negative-news-distorts-our-thinking

One thing to point out is that it forces us to be blind to the good things that are all around us.

This matters, because research shows us that what we see on the news can significantly impact our mental health. While negative news may influence our thinking through multiple mechanisms, one important consideration is how it interfaces with our cognitive biases, keeping our focus on everything that’s going wrong while blinding us to all the good things around us.

1. Negativity bias means that we can’t turn negative news off
Negativity bias refers to the fact that humans focus on negative events, information, or emotions more than their positive counterparts.  Our preference for the negative has been harnessed to keep our attention.
2. Availability bias means that after we see negativity, we overestimate its significance.
If you’re constantly watching negative news, the availability bias means your brain may be more likely to remember horrible events and then believe that these relatively infrequent occurrences actually represent the general state of things.
3. Confirmation bias means that we will find evidence to support negativity.
Confirmation bias is the idea that we will actively seek out, remember, and favor information that confirms something we already believe.

I’m not saying to avoid all social media and all news programs, but I think it is wise to be aware that there is some manipulation going on with some social media sites and on news programs.  What we should be cognizant of is the fact that we have control over the type of information that we allow into our brains. If the psychology studies are telling us that we are already at 70 percent negativity when it comes to our thoughts, I say start your day off in a positive way.   If you feel depressed or pessimistic or you feel paralyzed by fear and anxiety, start looking at what kind of information you are allowing into your brain.  Limit your social media intake and your news reporting and start focusing on things that are positive. Spend time in the Word and in prayer. Be grateful for the things you have and learn to cultivate a quiet time with Jesus.

I’ll be perfectly honest with you. Right now, in this battle for truth and spreading my message, Satan is kicking my butt.  Fighting for truth and light is a hard battle.
I have one review for my book and it is written by a non-believer,
Here is a quote,
What wasn’t clear from the book description that I read at one of my favorite book review sites was that this book is heavily invested in the Christian mythos and bible. The book is full of bible quotes and references to the Christian God and Jesus. If you’re Christian, this will probably be fine and actually be a way to support your passion and purpose with your faith. If you are not Christian, depending on your spiritual bent (or lack of one), you may find this heavy reliance on Christianity to be a bit much.

Christian mythos ——    a myth or mythology     or set of beliefs or assumptions.

This is the way I see the score in my mind.        SATAN   1      Johnny    0

Am I scared, or am I leaning toward quitting or giving up?  Bleep  NO !!   It’s early in the game. I’m just getting warmed up !!

I  would like to extend the offer for a free copy of my new book, “Discover Your Passion, Release Your Power:How to Fulfill Your Purpose in the power of the Authentic Self” in any form you would like. If you would like an advance review paperback copy, email your home address to bravethewaveweride@gmail.com. If you would like a pdf or kindle version of the book just email the request to bravethewaveweride@gmail.com and I will send it to you. I am hoping to get some reviews for the book. Any help with those reviews would be greatly appreciated. Also, if you know any other people in the family of believers that are having a particularly tough time during this pandemic, please forward this email to them.

Thank you for your support !!

Your Brother in Christ

Johnny

bravethewaveweride@gmail.com
bravethewave.org

                                     

                Unusual Times Call for Unusual Actions

      “To Be Blessed In Unusual Ways, We must Think and Act in Unusual Ways”

There is no question that these are unusual times. Weird. Strange. Everything has been turned on its head. When we see so much tumult, chaos and fear, this is a time to stop and reflect. When there are unusual circumstances in our lives and the status quo has been upended, this calls for unusual actions. We need to rethink how we behave and we need to rethink our priorities.

The Covid pandemic has claimed over 1 million lives.  It seems that we are getting control of the situation but it seems that we are constantly getting hit with new waves of the virus.  When is this going to end? I can tell you that the health care workers that I am working with were frazzled, frustrated and flummoxed in the past two years but things seem to be improving.

Now we are getting hit with high fuel prices, heat waves and climate change,  inflation and cultural wars.  We as a nation seem more divided than at any other time in history.  These are tough times for everyone, there is no doubt about that.

Truth Doesn’t Change

What do we do ? We go to our source for strength, love and peace. Jesus. We go to our sources for power, love and energy. We remember that even though circumstances change all around us, there are some truths that never change that we can grab hold of and anchor our lives to.

Strange and unusual circumstances don’t change who we are and don’t alter the simple truth that we are loved and we are not alone. We also can’t ignore the fact that God has a plan for our lives and we have a purpose. Tough circumstances don’t change these truths. Tough circumstances makes these truths more readily discernible.

We have a God given passion and a God given purpose. Even though we may be facing unprecedented challenges, these facts do not change.

This reminds me of a documentary I was watching the other day on General George S Patton. In the documentary, there was a statement that Patton’s legacy and reputation were both established and cemented in a period of about six weeks. Think about that for one second. For twenty or thirty years from World War I to the middle or end of World War 2, all the struggles and experiences and trials were laid out before him to prepare him for a period of about six weeks.

This makes me think about our own unique situation. Could it be possible that all of our trials and sacrifices and experiences up to this point were preparing us for this very moment? Could this be the moment or the period that we were created to shine, guide and lead? What if we ignore the moment and don’t recognize it for what it is ?

There may be people all around us who are looking for guidance, leadership and support. We should look for people all around us who look like they are struggling to deal with these trying times so we can be a source of inspiration and support. This is our moment to shine. We should be making every effort to seize it.

Start With The Impossible

 Start by doing what’s necessary; then do what’s possible; and suddenly you are doing the impossible.

-Francis of Assisi

If we aren’t already doing so, this is the perfect time to start the habit of a daily quiet time in bible study and prayer to ask God for guidance and direction. We need a compass to guide us through these rough waters. If this is already an ingrained habit, then our bible study and prayer should be ramped up a notch because these waves just keep getting bigger and bigger. I just saw a news report yesterday that said 49 percent of the population in the United States has taken a hit to their income during this pandemic. That means half of us are making less money while our stress levels are going up. Now we are dealing with sky high inflation and sky high fuel costs.

We are struggling just to survive.

Believe it or not, every single one of us is called to do the impossible. That is a bold statement. How do I know this? Because we cannot achieve our purpose in the power of our passion within our own strength. We are absolutely going to have to depend on God.

If you are pursuing a purpose right now that you can achieve in your own power, you don’t need God and it doesn’t require any faith. That is most likely your plan for your life, not God’s. When it comes to God’s plan for our purpose, we are going to need passion, energy and supernatural power and it is going to require faith. God is interested in growing our faith, because without faith, we cannot please God.

And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him
Hebrews 11:6 NIV

Faith brings us into a close, loving relationship with God because it forces us to rely on HIM. There is a tremendous amount of power in that. There is a tremendous amount of value in that also.

In all this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, for you are receiving the end result of your faith, the salvation of your souls.                                                       
1 Peter 1:6-9 NIV

So what do we do? We look around in a world full of tumult ,chaos, fear and suffering. What do these things provide for us? Opportunities. God given opportunities to lead our families. God given opportunities to  show that we aren’t afraid. To embrace the challenges before us. To accept our “assignment of love”. The idea regarding our “assignment of love” is addressed in my book, “Discover Your Passion, Release Your Power”. Here is an excerpt,

Let’s stop for a second and go back into the land of the near-death experience. As I have mentioned, the NDE can bring some valuable insight in the quest to discover our own unique passions. There are two extraordinary and powerful principles outlined in the following NDE account that can really help us to home in on our own unique passion. In Lessons from the Light, a person who had an NDE describes what they learned:

One thing I (learned) was that we are ALL here to do an “assignment of love.” We don’t have to do it at all, or we can do as many as we like. It’s up to us. Our “assignment” is programmed in at birth, and it is the very thing or things we love most.

Here is another excerpt regarding our “ASSIGNMENT OF ENERGY” from a person describing their near-death experience:

I was such a bozo. I always thought doing what you loved most was selfish. I can remember how amazed and happy I was when this information “came into my mind.” This other source of energy, using my voice said, “That is the most unselfish and constructive thing you can do for the world because that is your assigned energy and you will be happiest doing it, you will be the best at it, and most respected for it!

Assigned energy? Do you have an assigned energy? Did you even know that you have an assigned energy? This was a unique idea to me. It’s a unique idea for many people.

Capture The Moment

So clearly, when we look around, the world at this time is filled with opportunities to accept and engage in our “assignments”. Opportunities, circumstances and situations  are all around us to show love and service to those around us. These actions are our most powerful witness to our faith in a world filled with fear, uncertainty and people looking for guidance, direction and wisdom.  But we don’t point to ourselves, we point to Christ.

Love is invisible until you see action.

So let’s focus on those around us including our family, friends and co-workers and let them see the “hope” that we have and the confidence that we have in God’s plan for us. We are to lead by example. We are to be beacons of light and strength. That is the one thing that I see in believers around me at work and in the community right now that is a powerful witness to an unbelieving world. Fearlessness and a positive attitude. No fear of illness and a willingness to support and encourage people who are terrified of this illness. I myself probably tell people ten times a day “don’t be afraid”, when I tell them they have a positive test for the virus because I can see the fear in their eyes.
One thing that I see in believers is no fear of death. There is no fear of death because of a steadfast confidence in our ultimate destination. We look forward to being in a loving, perfect, blissful environment (heaven), enjoying the presence of God and our best friend, Jesus.

But in your hearts revere Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect,

1 Peter 3:15 NIV

And we should remember this inspiring quote, (one of my favorites)

Christianity, if false, is of no importance, and if true, of infinite importance. The only thing it cannot be is moderately important.

C. S. Lewis

I do need your help though, if you are a fellow Christian believer and would like to help spread this message, please take the time to leave a review on one of my books.   This is the only written review I have for my Challenge Your Fear book that has been on sale for 1 year.

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on November 12, 2022

 

It is clear from the moment of the introduction that Challenge Your Fear Empower Your Spirit was written by a Christian for Christians, and there is plenty of helpful tips that do not involve faith.

One thing I have learned is that this is a huge war we are in as Christians.  We are going to face ridicule, rejection and criticism, just like Jesus did. But we need to stick together and help each other.

What blessings await you when people hate you and exclude you and mock you and curse you as evil because you follow the Son of Man. When that happens, be happy! Yes, leap for joy! For a great reward awaits you in heaven.

(Luke 6:22- 23 NLT)

I’m not asking for money, I just ask that if you buy one of my books, please take 30 seconds of your time to leave a written review that can help to counter some of the anger and hatred that comes when anyone mentions Jesus.

Any help would be greatly appreciated !!

If you know any other people in the family of believers that are having a particularly tough time during this pandemic, please forward this blog post to them.

Thank you for your support !!

Your Brother in Christ

Johnny

bravethewaveweride@gmail.com
bravethewave.org

 

 

Challenge Your Fear, Empower Your Spirit: Transform From Worrier to Warrior In the Power of the Authentic Self (Authentic Self Series): Cavazos MD, Johnny: 9781733821377: Amazon.com: Books

If you are experiencing persistent symptoms of fatigue, body aches, brain fog or shortness of breath even months after a bout of Covid, you can learn more here,

Long Haul Covid: A Medical Emergency?