Day 303- What does your attitude reflect?
📖Daily Reading
Colossians 2-3
Join me on my morning walk as we rise and shine together by walking through the Bible daily and learn a practical applicable coaching nugget from the ultimate life coach - our creator (whatever that means to you). No judgement zone here, all are welcome, we are all on a spiritual journey because we are after all spiritual beings having a human experience.
📝 Reflection
Colossians 2: 20-23
'These rules may seem wise because they require strong devotion, pious self-denial, and severe bodily discipline. But they provide no help in conquering a person’s evil desires. You have died with Christ, and he has set you free from the spiritual powers of this world. So why do you keep on following the rules of the world, such as, “Don’t handle! Don’t taste! Don’t touch!”? Such rules are mere human teachings about things that deteriorate as we use them. ‘
Our attitude towards what we do reflects our internal motivation of why we are doing it. It is very easy for ‘believers’, all humans really, to be tempted into following the rules, regulations and laws. Humans default logical system says that if I am putting a lot of effort into something then I deserve something for it in return. Following a lot of religious rules takes a lot of effort, devotion, self denial, deprivation and discipline. When the attitude is to just be a ‘good rule follower’ this actually blocks the love and joy that can come when we do if from an attitude of desiring to be closer to God and others.
I was a pretty good rule follower for a long time and was constantly trying to be better. This was not helping my connection to God or to others. It was helping my false sense of connection to other believers who were also trying to be good. We were connected through our attitude of trying to be a good club ‘do gooders’. Unfortunately this is the attitude that many evangelical and fundamental churches in America are cultivating today. But this is not a judgment against anyone, because just like I was, many are doing this from a place of good intentions. We are all just doing the best we can with what we know at the time, I truly believe that.
I thought I was loving sinners including myself but ‘hating the sin’. This type of thinking only compounds the issue. It reflects our attitude, that we believe there is a set of rules we are to be following and we just aren’t doing it good enough. Paul uses the word pious twice in this chapter, at least in my translation. Pious means making or constituting a hypocritical display of virtue, or sincere but unlikely to be fulfilled. So basically it means that there is an attitude of proving and displaying ones goodness through the obedience to law but a misalignment with the heart and desire of the person to the law. When you find your goodness in your own hard work and your own efforts it can really take you off course.
Back to the word attitude. Attitude means a settled way of thinking or feeling about something, a position o the body indicating a particular mental state, and finally the orientation of an aircraft relative to the direction of travel. This last one is particularly a good metaphorical way of looking at what our attitude is reflecting. If you are only ‘behaving’ because you think it is the right thing to do, it is the only way you are able to think of yourself as ‘good’, or because it is earning you spiritual and earthly brownie points then you are going to drift way of course from the direction you thought you would be going.
The paradox of grace, God’s love and mercy is the more you try to be good according to rules of men, the worse you are in God’s kingdom. We are beings that think and in order to think we have to have language, labels and categories. If you are in the good category you automatically have to create a definition of bad/sin and then start putting others into said category. This puts you in God’s job or having to now judge vs. love. Fear vs. have faith. Condemn vs. have mercy. Hate vs. give grace etc..
✍🏼Daily Journal Prompt
Knowing your own attitude takes a lot of courage, honesty, vulnerability and self awareness. God will give you the strength through his love and grace to hold you in the process. What is your attitude reflecting. Can you let your guard down, let grace in and let the attitude of love flow in? Following rules is hard and for humans we feel really proud when we are trying so hard- we want the reward and recognition for it and we want to use it to look down on others if we are being honest, right?
📖Tomorrows Reading
Colossians 4
Coaching Opportunity
My inaugural OWN IT! For Good! group & 1:1 coaching is well underway and it is amazing. The participants are absolutely loving it and experiencing major aha's, break throughs and life changing mindset shifts. Please let me know if you are interested in experiencing this as well, I am considering kicking off another group in January of 2023. Let's make 2023 the year of YOU by laying a solid foundational mind set! The world needs what only you have to offer! Give yourself the best gift ever, the best version of you is ready to rise & shine!
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