Month: September 2024

By Rick Warren – Source: nhulieuthanhkinh.com

“Hard work is worthwhile, but empty talk will make you poor.”  Proverbs 14:23 (CEV)

What you say has a direct connection to your heart.

Whatever your heart is filled with is going to come out of your mouth. If you’re filled with anger, anger is going to come out of your mouth. If your heart is filled with depression, it’s going to come out of your mouth. If your heart is filled with joy, that’s going to come out of your mouth.

The Bible says in Mark 12:30, “You must love the LORD your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength” (NLT). You could also say it like this: Love God with all your talk, all your feelings, all your thinking, and all your acting. God shaped you to primarily be a talker, feeler, thinker, or doer.

Heart people have a hard time being quiet. They’re talkers. When you’re a heart person, you’ve got to let it out. You’ve got to tell other people. Heart people love to tell stories. They love to sit and converse, especially in heart-to-heart conversations.

The world needs people who are communicators. We need people who can lead discussions and who can verbalize what the rest of us feel. We need teachers, counselors, and coaches who can teach us and direct us. We need comedians. We need preachers. We need all of these people who are built on verbal skills and who are able to move the world forward.

God’s warning for talkers is this: You also have to act. Proverbs 14:23 says, “Hard work is worthwhile, but empty talk will make you poor” (CEV). In other words, you’ve got to move ahead. You’ve got to stop only talking about your plans and start making them happen.

By Rick Warren – Source: nhulieuthanhkinh.com

“It’s useless to rise early and go to bed late, and work your worried fingers to the bone. Don’t you know he enjoys giving rest to those he loves?”  Psalm 127:2 (MSG)

The Bible says in Mark 12:30, “You must love the LORD your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength” (NLT). Another way to say it is this: Love God with all your talk, all your feelings, all your thinking, and all your acting. God shaped you to primarily be a talker, feeler, thinker, or doer.

“Doers” love God with their strength. They are the energetic activists of life—the achievers, the accomplishers, the workers, and the people who push things forward and make things happen in the practical sense of life.

What is the purpose of “doers” in the world?

The world needs contribution. We don’t just need communication, compassion, and consideration. We’ve got to get to work and do it! We need people with initiative, energy, action, and a bias for achievement.

But we all have flaws, and for doers, it’s overwork. Doers are always working. They never stop to think, and they certainly don’t stop to feel. They are always busy!

God says in Psalm 127:2, “It’s useless to rise early and go to bed late, and work your worried fingers to the bone. Don’t you know he enjoys giving rest to those he loves?” (MSG). If you are a doer, that would be a good verse to put up on the mirror in your bathroom. God wants his loved ones to get their proper rest.

Some of you need to do less. Not less for God, but less in other areas so you’ll have more time to do what matters most.

The Bible says that when you become a believer, God makes you a new person inside: “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!” (2 Corinthians 5:17 NIV).

When you become a believer, your past is forgiven, you have a reason for living, and you have a home in heaven. Let me tell you something that doesn’t change when you come to Christ: Your personality doesn’t change. God doesn’t slow you down when you come to him. He just changes your direction. In fact, he wants to empower you. Remember, you got your personality from him.

God doesn’t want to make you a clone of everybody else in the way that you worship and serve and love him. He wants you to serve him with your personality. Not only that, but he will strengthen your personality, not dampen it. He’s going to make you more you than you’ve ever been before.

By Rick Warren – Source: nhulieuthanhkinh.com

“When the master comes and finds the servant doing his work, the servant will be blessed.”  Luke 12:43 (NCV)

All of us have unused abilities. But there are three ways that you can start cultivating your abilities so that they are being used for good and for God’s glory.

1. Estimate your abilities.

Do an assessment of your life. Do an audit of your abilities. What are you good at doing? Make a list. If there’s one thing I could say to young people today to prepare for their future, this is it: Know your strengths. Know your weaknesses. Consider the capabilities God has given you.

Parents, help your kids understand their SHAPE—their Spiritual gifts, Heart, Abilities, Personality, and Experiences. Your children have far more abilities than they think.

2. Dedicate your abilities.

Commit them to God for the use he intended. Romans 12:1 says, “Offer yourselves as a living sacrifice to God, dedicated to his service and pleasing to him” (GNT). Say, “God, you gave me these abilities. Now I’m going to give them back to you. I want to use them for the purpose for which you gave them to me.”

3. Cultivate your abilities.

That means you practice, improve, sharpen, and develop them. Any ability that God has given you can be increased with use. The Bible says in Ecclesiastes 10:10, “If the ax is dull and its edge unsharpened, more strength is needed, but skill will bring success” (NIV).

How do you get skill? Practice. God says you need to sharpen your ax. A dull ax takes more energy. He says to work smarter, not harder. Sharpening your abilities—your aptitudes, your skills—is a spiritual responsibility.

God has invested enormously in you. First, he created you. Second, he shaped you with spiritual gifts and personality. Then he sent Jesus to die for you. God has made an incredible investment in your life! And he expects a return on the investment. He’s going to ask you one day, “What did you do with what you were given? How did you use your abilities to honor me, to serve others, to make a living, and to be an example? How did you use them to help other people?”

In Luke 12:43, Jesus said, “When the master comes and finds the servant doing his work, the servant will be blessed” (NCV). I want you to have that blessing. I want God to find you using your abilities in the ways that he intended.

By Rick Warren – Source: nhulieuthanhkinh.com

“Be honest in your evaluation of yourselves.” Romans 12:3 (NLT)

The Bible says that God wants you to listen to your heart. To know what he wants you to do, he wants you to look at what you’re made to do. But most people these days are moving so fast that they don’t have time to listen to their hearts.

We’ve got to slow down! We’re all in such a hurry, stressed with too much to do, not realizing until later that we didn’t have to do so much.

That describes most people today in America. They’re speeding with no direction. But God wants you to slow down and listen to your heart. Romans 12:3 says, “Be honest in your evaluation of yourselves” (NLT).

I suggest you get alone with God and ask these questions: What do I love to do? What do I dream of doing? What fascinates me? What can I talk about, think about, and study all day and not get bored? Where have I been most effective in my life?

I once baptized an 80-year-old woman after a service at Saddleback Church. She wanted to be a small group host. That’s pretty cool—an 80-year-old small group host! She said, “I just wish I had learned years ago that we serve God out of our design, not out of duty.”

I wish everybody could learn that truth. That’s what SHAPE—your Spiritual gifts, Heart, Abilities, Personality, and Experiences—is all about. We serve God out of our design, the way he shaped us. We serve God not out of duty but because we love him.

When you do what God has wired you to do, it brings him glory. That’s the way to live. Don’t serve God out of force or design or guilt. Serve him out of delight and gratitude.

Start by making a careful exploration of who you are and the work you’ve been given. In other words, discover what God put you on earth to do. Then go do it with joy!

By Rick Warren – Source: nhulieuthanhkinh.com

“The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.” Psalm 34:18 (NIV)

We’ve all had our heart broken in some way—maybe by disappointment, fear, shame, rejection, or ridicule.

I would say to you, as your friend, that I’m sorry your heart has been broken. I really am. I care about the hurt that you have gone through because God cares about it. He hurts with you. What was God doing when you were weeping? He was weeping too.

In fact, it is in your pain that God is closest to you, whether you realize it or not.

The Bible says in Psalm 34:18, “The LORD is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit” (NIV). How does he do that? He saves us by giving us a heart transplant. It’s his specialty, in fact.

God says, in effect, “For the heart that’s guilty, I’ll give you a heart that’s forgiven. For the heart that’s resentful, I’ll give you a heart that’s full of peace. For the heart that’s anxious, I’ll give you heart that’s confident. For the heart that’s lonely, I’ll give you a heart full of love. The heart that has been bitter and angry? I’ll give you a heart that is forgiving and loving and generous instead. Let me do a heart transplant in you. I will set you free.”

Why do we need freedom? Because we’re all enslaved. We’re slaves to the expectations of other people. We’re slaves to past memories. We’re slaves to future fears. We’re slaves to current pressure. We’re slaves to the opinions of society, and on and on and on.

But all you have to do is open your heart to Jesus Christ and give him 100 percent of your heart. Say, like David in Psalm 119:32, “I run in the path of your commands, for you have broadened my understanding” (NIV).

We must stop limiting God! We can’t even imagine how much he wants to do with our lives. Open your heart to him, and let him transplant your heart for his own.

By Rick Warren – Source: nhulieuthanhkinh.com

“We are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago.”  Ephesians 2:10 (NLT)

The reason you have value is because of what God says about you, not because of what other people say about you.

Many people lack self-esteem. They don’t feel good about themselves because they’re always trying to pump themselves up by the kind of clothes they wear, the kind of car they drive, or the things they say. They’re constantly striving to feel better about themselves because they really don’t accept themselves—which, really, is rebellion against God.

If God wanted you to be somebody else, you wouldn’t exist. But God wanted you! He made you to be you. We know as believers that real self-esteem comes from three facts:

1. God created you.

2. Jesus died for you.

3. God’s Spirit lives in you.

The Bible says, “We are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago” (Ephesians 2:10 NLT). The New Testament was written originally in Greek. The Greek word for “masterpiece” is poema. It’s the word we get “poem” from. Essentially, God is saying, “You’re my poem. You’re my masterpiece. I don’t want you copying somebody else. I’ve put gifts in you—spiritual gifts, heart, abilities, personality, and experiences—and I want you to use them.” You have worth because of what God says about you and what he has done for you.

You’re not just wanted. You’re needed! The Bible says in 1 Corinthians 12:4-6, “There are different spiritual gifts, but the same Spirit gives them. There are different ways of serving, and yet the same Lord is served. There are different types of work to do, but the same God produces every gift in every person” (GW).

You are needed. You’re needed in your church. You are needed in your community. You are needed in this world. If you weren’t needed, God would not have made you. He brought you here to make a contribution with your life.

There are no little people in the family of God. Every single person—every part of God’s family—is necessary. Do you know what the most important light in my house is? It’s not the big chandelier in the dining room. It’s the little dinky light I turn on so that when I get up to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night, I don’t stub my toe.

Every role is important. You are important. You have value because God said so and because he paid such a large ransom for your life when he sent his Son, Jesus, to die on the cross for you.

You are God’s masterpiece. Now go out and live like you believe it!

By Rick Warren – Source: nhulieuthanhkinh.com

“My friend, I ask, ‘Who do you think you are to question God? Does the clay have the right to ask the potter why he shaped it the way he did?’”  Romans 9:20 (CEV)

Spiritual gifts, Heart, Abilities, Personality, Experiences—these are the five things that make you, you. I call them your SHAPE.

Accepting your SHAPE —the unique way God made you that brings glory to him—means you believe that God knows best. It all comes down to a matter of trust. Do you believe that God made a mistake when he made you? Or do you trust him, knowing that he has a plan for your life?

Many of us make these kinds of statements: God, there are things I don’t like about myself. I wish I had different hair or a different color of skin. I wish I were taller, shorter, skinnier. I wish I had more talent. I wish I could do ‘that.’ I wish I looked like him. I wish I had her smarts.

And on and on our lists go. This kind of thinking is basically telling God, “You blew it! Everybody else is okay. But you goofed up big when you made me.”

When you reject yourself, you are in essence rejecting God, because he’s your Creator. When you don’t accept yourself, it’s rebellion against God. You’re saying, “God, I know better than you. You should have made me differently, with a different set of strengths and a different set of weaknesses.”

But God says, “No, I created you exactly the way you are because I want you to be you—with your strengths and your weaknesses. All of it can give me glory—if you’ll just start doing what I made you to do instead of trying to be like everybody else.”

It’s actually quite arrogant to reject yourself. The Bible says in Romans 9:20, “My friend, I ask, ‘Who do you think you are to question God? Does the clay have the right to ask the potter why he shaped it the way he did?’” (CEV).

Whenever we doubt God’s love and wisdom, we always get into trouble. The root behind these doubts is that you don’t trust God. You don’t believe God really loves you. You don’t believe that he really has your best interest at heart. You wish he had made you something different. As a result, there’s a spirit of bitterness in you that produces frustration and keeps you from being the person God wants you to be.

But you don’t have to live that way—there is hope! Job 10:10 says, “You guided my conception and formed me in the womb” (NLT). God wanted you, and he loves you. Believe it, and then trust it!

By Rick Warren – Source: nhulieuthanhkinh.com

“Bring to me all the people who are mine, whom I made for my glory, whom I formed and made.”  Isaiah 43:7 (NCV)

A number of years ago I started using a little acrostic called SHAPE to talk about the five things that make you, you. SHAPE is the way God wired you for your life. Every area of your life is influenced by the way you’re shaped.

Spiritual gifts, Heart, Abilities, Personality, Experiences—these are the five things that make you, you. In that combination of spiritual gifts, you have heart, passion, and interests. Why do you think you have those interests? Because God gave them to you. And if we all liked to do the same things, there would be a lot less accomplished in the world.

So God made you unique, and there’s nobody else like you. Why does this matter?

1. Because your SHAPE reveals God’s purpose for you.

The way you find out what God wants you to do with your life is to discover how he shaped you. But here’s the thing: God won’t force you to do his plan. You can waste your life. You can use it on all kinds of personal, self-centered things and totally miss God’s plan and purpose for your life. In fact, most people do. That’s the tragedy.

And that’s why they’re so frustrated! They’re trying to be something somebody else wants them to be rather than what God wants them to be.

2. Because your SHAPE equips you to serve God.

God has a life mission for you that nobody else on this planet can do. Maybe you’ve missed that mission. Maybe you’ve missed serving God. But you can start today to make the rest of your life the best of your life. God will never ask you to do anything in life that he hasn’t already given you the ability to do.

3. Because life is a test.

If you’re a follower of Jesus, this life is preparation for the next life in heaven. God says, “This is a test. I’m testing you to see what you will do with what you’ve been given on earth. Based on that, I will determine what I give you to do in heaven for eternity.”

4. Because it shows God’s glory.

When you use your SHAPE to do what God made you to do, it not only feels good, but it also makes God smile. Irenaeus was a great Christian leader in the second century who said, “The glory of God is a human being fully alive.” You know what makes God smile? When he looks down and sees you and me using the talents that he gave us for his glory.

Isaiah 43:7 says, “Bring to me all the people who are mine, whom I made for my glory, whom I formed and made” (NCV). If you didn’t bring glory to God, you wouldn’t be alive. God made you because he wants to enjoy you!

By Rick Warren – Source: nhulieuthanhkinh.com

“The LORD does not look at the things people look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart.”  1 Samuel 16:7 (NIV)

Human life reveals God’s purpose and shows God’s glory—so we must always protect the sanctity of life.

No matter who you are or where you’re from, you are valuable. And the same is true for every child, no matter what society tries to tell you today.

None of us are perfect, but the Bible tells us that God accepts responsibility for all our genetic imperfections. Did you know that? That doesn’t mean he takes responsibility for the problems in our lives that we brought on ourselves because of poor choices like overeating or smoking or drinking too much. But your genetics—all the things that you didn’t have any say in, even the things people might call “defects” or “weaknesses”—are all part of your SHAPE.

The Bible says in 1 Samuel 16:7, “The LORD does not look at the things people look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart” (NIV).

God accepts responsibility because he has a bigger perspective than any human. He can see what we can’t see. And he loves each of us for our potential to do the great things he has planned for us, regardless of our handicaps, imperfections, or weaknesses.

God isn’t going to compare you with anybody else. He made you to be you. You are his masterpiece. He’s going to help you reach your unique potential.

By Rick Warren – Source: nhulieuthanhkinh.com

“Let’s not get tired of doing what is good. At just the right time we will reap a harvest of blessing if we don’t give up.” Galatians 6:9 (NLT)

In the waiting room of life, you can choose to panic. That’s our natural response! We tend to focus on what’s going on around us. We let our circumstances convince us that there is no reason to wait patiently, to be at peace, to trust, to hope.

Instead of panicking, you can choose to trust God. To be able to do that, you need to remember two things: One, God is never in a hurry. And two, God is never late. God’s timing is always perfect.

What happens in those times where it appears that God is late? God is getting you ready for a miracle!

There are so many examples of this in Scripture, including the story of Lazarus (John 11). Lazarus was one of Jesus’ best friends, and he had two sisters named Mary and Martha. They lived in Bethany, which was just a few miles from where Jesus was on the day Lazarus got sick. They sent word to Jesus that his friend was gravely ill and asked him to come to them.

Jesus could have easily been in Bethany in an hour or two. But it took him three days to go about five miles. When he got there, they told him, “You’re too late! We’ve already buried Lazarus.”

Jesus wasn’t late—because he already knew what he was going to do. His goal was not to heal Lazarus. His goal was to raise him from the dead. Jesus’ goal was not to just make Lazarus well. His goal was to do a miracle of astronomical proportions.

Jesus walked up to Lazarus’ tomb, told them to roll the stone away, and said, “Lazarus, come out.” And Lazarus did!

Sometimes God lets a situation get so bad that only a miracle will do.

God already knows what he’s going to do in your life next month, next year, and in the next decade, and his plan for you is good.

Don’t panic. Don’t give up your faith. Hold on. Keep praying and serving and meeting with God’s family. Keep sowing. Keep believing. Because you’re getting ready for a miracle.