30 June 2024

Limiting Ourselves is Good, Part 2 (TMF:2390)

Friday, July 05, 2024

Peace to Live By: Limiting Ourselves is Good, Part 2 (TMF:2390) - Daniel Litton
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We aren’t going to be able to develop lasting, deep relationships because we simply don’t have the time. We’ve got more and more people to talk to. I would rather have a few friends that I am close to and enjoy than thirty friends that I can’t keep up with. Yeah, I may feel cool and popular in the latter case, but my happiness will suffer because I will feel like I’m really not close to anybody at the end of the day. The truth is, most of us already have enough. What we should do is try to enjoy what we already have. Whether that’s our money or our relationships. Most of us can be perfectly happy, and are in a lot of cases, happy with the money we already make. We can focus that money on the areas that we enjoy, whether that’s hobbies or even eating out. Sure, more money may allow us to do what we already do on a more grander scale, but that is all. We should also focus on the relationships we do have, growing these deeper, instead of always trying to get more. In this last case, quality is definitely more important than quantity.

Limiting Ourselves is Good, Part 1 (TMF:2389)

Thursday, July 04, 2024

Peace to Live By: Limiting Ourselves is Good, Part 1 (TMF:2389) - Daniel Litton
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In American society, I don’t think a lot of us consider limiting ourselves when thinking about what increases our happiness. We think, “We need to get more, more, more!” Getting more seems to be a lot of people’s solution to a lack of happiness, right? I mean think about it. If we aren’t happy with the money we make, we think we need to get more money. Everybody wants more money. Or consider relationships. People want to be friends with everyone, to increase the number of their friends across the board. Social media works to accomplish this goal. Or, we believe that what we have isn’t new and interesting anymore, so buying something new then is the solution, right? Jesus said to beware of this kind of mindset. If we gain more and more relationships, that is more and more people we have to talk to and tend to. People we have to grow toward. If we are doing that, we are spreading ourselves a mile wide and an inch deep, as the saying goes. We aren’t going to be able to develop lasting, deep relationships because we simply don’t have the time. We’ve got more and more people to talk to.

Scripture Reversals Help Us Understand, Part 2 (TMF:2388)

Wednesday, July 03, 2024

Peace to Live By: Scripture Reversals Help Us Understand, Part 2 (TMF:2388) - Daniel Litton
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One method that can greatly help us understand the Scriptures, and it’s one that anyone can do, is simply to reverse the verse in question in order to get the other side of it. It’s a simple and easy method that requires no in-depth schooling. Anyone can do it. Certainly, it’s not going to work in every circumstance—far from it. But where it does work, can help us greatly. It can give us different angles that perhaps we haven’t seen before, so that we can gain insight into things that perhaps we’ve never even thought about or noticed. It allows us to see things from a different and new perspective. Personally, I’ve noticed that the reversals work particularly well with the teachings of Jesus or those of New Testament epistles. We can take a verse from the Apostle Paul, for instance, and reverse the words so that we see things in a different light. We could note, for instance, from the beginning of Romans 8, one of our favorite chapters in the Bible, if not our most favorite, in considering the first verse of that chapter, that God now only highly approves of us because we belong to Jesus. See what I did there?

Scripture Reversals Help Us Understand, Part 1 (TMF:2387)

Tuesday, July 02, 2024

Peace to Live By: Scripture Reversals Help Us Understand, Part 1 (TMF:2387) - Daniel Litton
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Most of us want to understand the Scriptures in our daily walks. There are a whole slew of books that can try to give us insight—there is no shortage in that department. A lot of them actually will help us. We can even go so far as to learn Greek or Hebrew so that we can further understand the Scriptures in their original text. Most of us aren’t going to go that far, though. In fact, I’ve never usually cared to go that far. I mean, after all, if we have the Bible in English, isn’t that good enough? If the English version isn’t accurate, then what’s the point of it? Wouldn’t it be a sin to read it in the first place? I think the original languages argument often shuts off the Scriptures to being capable of only being understood by an elite few. Sounds familiar from negative past church history, doesn’t it? One method that can greatly help us understand the Scriptures, and it’s one that anyone can do, is simply to reverse the verse in question in order to get the other side of it. It’s a simple and easy method that requires no in-depth schooling. Anyone can do it.

Listing Guarantees from Scripture, Part 4 (TMF:2386)

Monday, July 01, 2024

Peace to Live By: Listing Guarantees from Scripture, Part 4 (TMF:2386) - Daniel Litton
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And as the Sermon on the Mount states, any need that we have will be supplied to us—another basic present truth. Looking into the future, there are some key things that we can put on our list for encouragement, to increase our happiness. Our Lord’s prayer reminds us daily that God eventually is going to establish his kingdom here on the earth. That means that one day everything will be perfect again, just like it was before sin entered into the world. So, God is going to eliminate both sin and the evil forces that promote it. Satan will no longer be in the picture, at least till the very end. We know when the New Heaven and New Earth finally arrive that we will have abundance of possessions as well as abundance of friends, relationships, people to spend our time with, to live our new lives with. Yes, in considering the basic guarantees from Scripture, we have much to be hopeful for, many good thoughts that we can use to increase our happiness right now here in the present.