You would think sharing the love of God with others and telling how God sent his only Son into the world as a baby would be an easy thing to do and yet many believers never share Christ, even during the Christmas Season. In this article we will be looking at just some of the reasons why so many struggle with expressing their love for God even when the season sets the stage for communicating their own salvation experience.  If you haven’t read the first article on “Christmas Time” please read that one first as there are some important things to consider before reading this second part.

I have found that there is no better time to talk about the love of God and the birth of Christ than during the month of December. The real truth is that the radio and TV are doing a lot of the work for us and the Holy Spirit is speaking to the human heart no matter how broken the person may be. We so often are reluctant to share the story of the gospel because we look at the outside of people and think they don’t need our help when, in fact, they are crying out on the inside.

As a person with a “Bent” for seeing through things, it’s easy for me to be captivated by what’s out-of-order, missing or just wrong. It really doesn’t matter the subject or place I find myself, I can enter a business and I can quickly spot things that could be handled or organized better. When driving I’m a rules guy so you can imagine how easy it is for me to get captivated by what people should or should not be doing when driving.  It’s a “challenge” to be thankful given all the distractions in life.

If you haven’t read the first article on the subject of sacrifice called “Sacrifice – At What Point Does It Matter”, please do so before reading this one.  I opened the first article discussing the sacrifice of men trying to find and save a solider called Ryan in the movie “Saving Private Ryan”. The main premise is that sacrifice by both God and man should move us to respond by giving value to the one who gave.

All of us experience worry, anxiety and fear from time to time. This is a human experience. These issues become a problem when they become long-standing “friends” that seem to bring about a paralysis in our spiritual and emotional development. When the average professing Christian reads the New Testament the picture that is portrayed is one of victory and success. All too often believers in the forgiveness of Christ aren’t yet sold on how God wants to impart victory as well as forgiveness.

The topic of being spiritually and emotionally paralyzed will be covered in a total of 4 parts. If you have not read the first two parts, I would suggest reading them first. This is Part 3 and we will be covering a root cause that many fear looking at. It’s a target to look at when trying to figure out and overcoming the problem of being spiritually and emotionally paralyzed.  Keep in mind that all of us have a tendency to look for a “silver bullet” fix and resolve our problems no matter what they might be. The truth is that life is often more complex than we care to realize and so are the problems. That being said, there are answers to resolve this problem of being paralyzed in our lives and a passage from the Gospel of John is a good example.

This series started with an article on “What Paralyzes You?“, which dealt with the topic of things in our lives which can paralyze us both physically and spiritually. I also stated that when an area of our soul becomes paralyzed through actions of others or ourselves our perspective of life becomes distorted, thus we live less than God intended. God always intends for us to do great things with our lives yet so few grasp that truth, let alone walk in it, myself included.  If you haven’t read the first article on this topic please read that first.

So often we go to counseling to help us unravel our past to reveal the things that might have had a negative impact on our lives and therefore cause us to respond to people or behave in some negative way. There is a lot of good that can come from counselors who are gifted in discerning and unraveling past issues and encounters, but have you ever heard of a person going to a counselor and asking the question of why they behave well and make good sound decisions? I’ve been counseling people for nearly 40 years now and in all that time not one person has asked that question.

If you have not read the previous three articles with the same title please do so before reading this one.

In the previous articles I dealt with the “Traps & Pitfalls” of leaders. One of the reasons for doing so was our need to see what causes leaders and believers in general to be great examples to follow and which examples we need to avoid lest we learn damaged values and try to emulate them.

Early in our lives, we don’t know our limitations. Experience has a way of teaching us what we can’t do as well as what we can if we strive for understanding. If we are fortunate, when we are young, we have people cheering us on, though some have struggles from the beginning. The point is that we all have to determine whether to let life’s ups and downs control our future or whether we will reach for the understanding that will unlock the potential and purpose that we were created for.