The Glendale Star
20
July 22, 2021
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Pastor: Improving Your Life’s Batting Average Years ago, a great teacher named Bob Mumford had a thought: “If you want to increase your batting average, you have to stop swinging at every pitch that comes over the plate.” A baseball player watches for that perfect pitch and then swings for good results. Apply the same strategy to your life. Most people today are swinging in all directions — but they are swinging without a strategy. If you only swung at the ball intended for you to knock out of the park, you would be a Hall of Famer. One pitch that is thrown to us continually is the pitch of temptations. Why? Because we will swing almost every time at the temptation pitch and strikeout. Let me confess something to you. I wouldn’t say I like to write about behavior. Most times, it seems the only
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CHURCH COMMUNITY CONNECTION Pastor Ed Delph Glendale Star Columnist
thing pastors and churches talk about is behavior. Don’t get me wrong. Behavior is important. Why? The next step after, “Lead us not into temptation,” is, “Deliver us from evil.” The problem is not temptation. We all have temptations. The problem is giving in to temptations whose fruit has debilitating consequences. In the Lord’s Prayer, “Lead us not into temptation,” doesn’t mean God leads us into temptation. It means precisely the opposite. Jesus was saying, “Lord, help me make wise decisions ACROSS 1 5 9 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 23 25 28 32 33 34 36 37 38 39 42 44 48 49 50
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today. Empower me to overcome temptation, not be overcome by temptations.” Behavior and how we conduct ourselves are essential. It could determine our destiny. The problem is how we, in the church and other institutions, address other’s behavior. So, many times, it comes across as condemnation, not liberation. It’s more legislation than transformation. It’s like locking a robber in jail and then bragging about how he is not robbing banks anymore. Unless there is a fundamental transformation, that robber is still robbing banks on the inside. He just doesn’t have the opportunity to do what’s still in him. He knows it is illegal to rob a bank, but he doesn’t understand why. Legislation (the Law) is, “Thou shalt and Thou shalt not.” Transformation (Grace) sees why it’s wiser not to do 51 52 53 54 55 56
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by Donna Pettman
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something and to do another. It’s not throwing the book at somebody and shouting, “Behave yourself,” with no choice or empowerment. Consider this horse trainer tip from Pastor Randy Helm: “A good horse trainer can get a horse to change. A great horse trainer gets the horse to want to change.” The same is true of people. May I suggest a more empowering, more liberating, Biblical approach to making choices that lead us not into temptation? If there is a doubtful issue in your life, something with a mental question mark after it, put it through the Four E’s test. If your problem clears these four tests, it should no longer be a problem. God gave us the Four E’s test for a reason. It’s a God-empowered strate-
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Each numbered row contains two clues and two answers. The two answers differ from each other by only one letter, which has already been inserted. For example, if you exchange the A from MASTER for an I, you get MISTER. Do not change the order of the letters.
