If you haven’t seen this movie yet, you should. It might be the greatest film Christopher Nolan has ever made. It’s a 10/10.

The only problem I have with it is that it isn’t really The Odyssey. It’s definitely his interpretation of the Odyssey. There are not just missing parts to the story, Nolan’s Odysseus is quite different from Homer’s. I love movies (most people with a film degree - like me - say film). I love them because I love stories. Christopher Nolan’s take on Odysseus is in line with the kind of protagonists he often portrays. Odysseus is portrayed as ashamed of himself and conflicted about what he had done to the Trojans.

In my opinion, there’s a slight problem with this. In the story, that’s not really Odysseus. He also has a lot more of a sense of humor and is much smarter than the movie makes him seem. Nolan’s Odysseus is more like Virgil’s Aneas in The Aeneid. I’d love to see that film too.

So, for this and many reasons not listed. It’s a 5/10 adaptation. It gets the rough outlines right, but doesn’t strike all the notes for me. But everyone should see this movie. What makes these stories so timeless is that they have been reinterpreted and given perspective for thousands of years. See O Brother Where Art Thou for another interpretation. This is what I love about movies - and stories of all kinds - is that we all can watch the same movie and read the same book and have completely different takeaways.

I’m the furthest thing from a purist. I hope that Nolan’s film inspires people to read Homer, Virgil and everyone else. And that they also are drawn to the culture and philosophy that built these myths.

If you want to read the Odyssey, I like these two translations /

Daniel Mendelsohn’s 2025 Translation

This translation strikes a great balance between being poetic and readable. I haven’t read much of this one, but I like what I have read.

E.V Rieu’s Translation

I read this one in high school. Less like a poem and more like a story. It has its own charm.

If you don’t want to read the Odyssey at all, but want to be familiar with it. YOU ARE IN LUCK. That’s what we’re going to do over the next few weeks. This (and the Iliad) are some of my favorite things I’ve ever read. So now it’s time for our version of the Odyssey.

Story

Odysseus has been gone twenty years — ten fighting at Troy, ten lost somewhere at sea trying to get home. His son, Telemachus, has grown up without him. He is a young man now, technically the master of his father’s house. But everyone around him treats him like a boy.

His house has been overrun. More than a hundred men who want to marry his mother and become the next king of Ithaca have moved in. They are there day and night courting his mother Penelope, eating through the family’s food and wine. 100% certain that Odysseus is dead and the estate is theirs for the taking. It’s just a matter of time.

Telemachus hates it. He knows it’s wrong. He says this quietly, to himself. And he does nothing. He has no proof his father is dead, no confirmation he’s alive, no clear next move, so he waits. This feels like what he’s supposed to do. After all, isn’t patience a virtue?

Then a stranger arrives at the door, asking for hospitality. Telemachus welcomes him in and the two talk. The stranger is Athena - the goddess of wisdom, strategy and warfare - in disguise, and she challenges him. She tells him plainly that sitting here doing nothing is not what a man in his position should be doing. She tells him he isn’t a child anymore, that people can see plainly whose son he is, and that it’s time to act like he is the son of a great man. She tells him to stop waiting for news of his father to arrive on its own — to go and find it himself. Go to Sparta, ask the men who fought alongside Odysseus what they know about him.

After this conversation, something changes in Telemachus. The next morning, for the first time in his life, he calls a public assembly - the first since his father left - and stands up in front of the entire island to confront the suitors openly. He tells them that they are shameful. They are destroying his home and calls on Zeus to hold them accountable. However, it doesn’t go how he planned. The suitors blame Penelope and the assembly breaks up with nothing resolves.

The situation doesn’t change. But Telemachus does. He’s never spoken in public before, never confronted the suitors in all these years. He loses the fight. But he learns that being mature isn’t always about winning. It’s about being willing to take a stand even if you lose. Then he does something even bolder. Against his mother’s wishes, with no guarantee of what he’ll find, he outfits a ship and sails out to look for the truth himself.

His father was still missing. The suitors were still in his house. Circumstances had not changed. But Telemachus had. He stopped waiting for the situation to resolve itself and started acting like the man he was already supposed to be.

Truth

We assume maturity, wisdom, greatness or success are things that happen to us — that one day we’ll simply experience these things if we wait long enough.

We wait for these things the way that Telemachus waited for news of Odysseus. Passively telling ourselves that waiting is probably the right thing to do. After all, we don’t have the skills, resources, or relationships. We could fail, badly. In fact, it seems like if we try to do anything it will probably fail. We’ve hit a wall. It’s too uncomfortable and challenging to climb. We should just wait for the right opportunity, the right situation, or the storm to pass.

Days, weeks, and years go by. Nothing changes. Maybe God will come take care of it for us?

Telemachus learned an open secret. It’s not really a secret, but it feels hidden. It feels hidden because it’s actually really hard to do.

Just do it.

He acts first. He gets the failure out of the way. But somehow the failure gives him a sense of confidence. He gets on the ship and sails away. After all, nothing changes if nothing changes. Courage is not the absence of fear. Nor is it the presence of certainty. It is the ability to do what needs to be done when you’re afraid and uncertain.

In 1 Timothy, Paul tells Timothy not to let anyone look down on him for his youth, but to set an example now . (1 Timothy 4:12).

We’re not supposed to wait until we feel ready. We’re supposed to take the step, and let the qualification catch up to the action. Qualification is not proof we are ready. It’s proof that we already did it.

Practice

Stop waiting for a feeling that will never come.

My dad has always said “It’s better to act your way into a feeling than to feel your way into an action.” Waiting to feel like you are ready, capable or even desire to do it will only come once you actually move.

The feeling will not come until you act. So move first.

What’s the one thing you know you need to do that you have been waiting for?

“Opinions are like armpits, everybody has them and most of the time they stink.”

The quote I have always heard is a little different than this one, but this is a PG rated letter, so we’ll keep it that way.

It seems like when we make decisions about anything, there’s always someone around us who wants to share their opinion with us about their decision that we’ve made. This happens so often that we often make decisions and then spend the next three days, monitoring, observing, and digesting how everyone around us - even strangers on the internet - are responding to it.

Story

Aesop tells us a fable about a miller, his son and a donkey. A miller was one of the most common trades in the ancient world. They would take the crops from a city and crush them into flour with heavy millstones. They were highly skilled laborers and were integral to their local economy.

This particular miller live with his son just outside of his town. One morning they set off to sell a donkey.

They hadn’t gone far when a group of women at a well called out: “Look at those fools. They have a perfectly good donkey and they’re walking.”

The miller thought it over. Then he lifted his son onto the donkey.

A little further on, old men in the shade shook their heads. “Shameful. That lazy boy rides while his father walks.” So the miller switched. He rode, his son walked.

They hadn’t gone much further before a woman passing the other direction scowled, “How can you ride in comfort while your poor child stumbles in the dust?” The miller decided that he and his son would both ride the donkey.

Once they entered the town, people began to stare and whisper, “how cruel. Two riders on that poor beast.” The miller, desperate to finally do right by everyone, did the only thing left to do. They would carry the donkey. They bound its legs to a pole and hoisted it on their shoulders.

On the bridge into the market, the donkey panicked, broke free from the pole, and fell into the river.

It drowned.

They had come to sell the donkey. They went home with nothing.

Truth

Every critic along the road wasn’t entirely wrong. It wasn’t bad advice that killed the donkey. It wasn’t too much advice either. It was the application of all the advice to please outsiders.

In my twenties, I worked for our church as a Creative Director. One of the dynamics of working in this kind of position in a larger organization is that everyone is mad at you at one time or another. There’s a Lead Pastor who serves as the CEO of the church, but then also, there are all kinds of different leaders and ministry directors who think that they have taste. From a leadership perspective, of course the CEO makes the ultimate decisions, but each leader also sees themselves as the CEO of whatever area they are over. Add to this your own personal creative taste and making creative progress in this type of environment can be difficult if you care about pleasing people.

I wouldn’t call myself a people pleaser. However, all of us should care about what people think on a level, most of our jobs depend on it. As much as I don’t care about pleasing people, I do care about providing for myself. And a significant aspect of providing for ourselves requires that certain people are happy with us. This felt like a dilemma that I didn’t know how to fix. I ended up having a conversation with my mom about it and she said something very simple that changed my life: “You just have to choose who you are willing to disappoint.”

That thought changed my life.

In the story of the miller, the problem was not that his plan was bad. It was that he allowed his plan to be altered so much by the desire to make people who weren’t a part of the plan happy. He actually ended up sacrificing his plan for the sake of making random people happy. These people were not invested in his success, didn’t care about his plan, and were just spouting their opinions. Like most of the people around us.

Proverbs 15:22 tells us that there is “wisdom in a multitude of counselors.” When we get other people’s perspective on a problem or plan, we are given the gift of a vantage point that we didn’t have before. That’s a great gift, however, it’s one thing to get someone’s perspective, its another thing to change your plan based on the perspective.

There’s a difference between getting people’s perspective and applying it. You can get a lot of people’s perspective, but you can’t apply all of it. Their perspectives will often oppose each other and pull you in opposite directions.

Maybe we can, and should get as many perspectives as possible. However, it seems that we should also be intentional about whether or not we apply those things to our life.

Practice

How do we know who to listen to? Ask yourself these types of questions:

• Does this person have good fruit in the area of their life they are giving me their opinion in?

• Is this person valuable to me?

• Does this perspective help me to get to where I need to go?

• What happens if I disappoint this person?

• Did I believe this decision was right before they said anything? Why?

• Does this person want what’s best for me?

• Am I afraid of being wrong? Or of being judged?

Most importantly, decide who you are unwilling to disappoint.

That list is usually a lot shorter than the people who are giving you their perspective. I only have three people on my list:

1. God - Ultimately, I am not trying to “win the approval of human beings…” (Galatians 1:10) I want to live by conviction.

2. My parents - I both work with them/for them and they are my chief mentors, I respect their voice the most in my life.

3. My wife - I will do everything I can to make sure the life we live and what I do honors her and keeps her happy.

Finally, before you change a decision because of someone’s reaction, stop and ask:

Am I changing this because they’re right — or because I’m uncomfortable with their disapproval?

Most people live their lives by committee instead of conviction. They don’t do the right thing, they do the thing that the greatest amount of people approve of. That’s the road to a failed life. Don’t kill your donkey trying to please people who don’t care.

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“Living life as an artist is a practice. … The real work of the artist is a way of being in the world.” / Rick Rubin (The Creative Act)

“You are both a work of art and an artist at work.” / Erwin Raphael McManus

“For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance as our way of life.” / Ephesians 2:10

In Ephesians 2:10, the Greek word Paul uses for workmanship is ποίημα (poíēma). This word means: a unique creation unlike anything else, a work of art and divine inspiration.

The oldest art form is the story. We told stories long before we developed the technology to write or mix pigment to paint a cave wall. Before writing, stories were how we passed beliefs, ideas and knowledge from generation to generation. Every known civilization and culture throughout history has storytelling traditions. The fundamental context of human existence is the story. The way we connect with those closest to us is through the stories we tell them and the ones they tell us. We think in stories. They are how we understand the world.

We have created literature, theater, radio, film, television and innumerable other mediums to tell stories. The ultimate storytelling medium is our own life. Our life is not a series of random data points. There is a flow and a sequence. Our lives are stories. We are simultaneously telling and writing our story. Great stories are great masterpieces. We are both artist and work of art. Great masterpieces require the work of a master. There is an art to living. To tell a great story with our lives, we must learn to master this art.

Philosophy

I’ll never forget The Matrix and Gladiator. I was 12 when The Matrix came out in theaters and 13 by the time I saw Gladiator. The Matrix is not just one of the greatest sci-fi movies of all time, it also incorporated philosophy, theology and history in a way I had never encountered before. This story gave me the idea that maybe things in the world are more connected than they seem to be on the surface. Then I saw Gladiator and I learned that Marcus Aurelius was a real person and interacted with Meditations for the first time. Watching a spiritual/philosophical movie, then learning about a real philosopher and his philosophy affected me deeply. I was raised by what I would call a Biblical philosopher – my dad. He would have never called himself that. But his approach to life informed my approach to life and still does. One of the ways he shaped my thinking was with Augustine’s idea that “(a) person who is a good and true Christian should realize that truth belongs to his Lord, wherever it is found, gathering and acknowledging it even in pagan literature . . .” (On Christian Doctrine)

I was raised in a Christian home, but with a key difference from many people I knew. For most people I knew, questioning was off limits. Accepted truth, tradition and belief never needed to be challenged. In my family, questioning was embraced. Not for the sake of asking questions, but for the sake of clarity. From a young age, my parents both encouraged the seeking of truth. Which, throughout my life has led me many places. True stories, myths, legends, philosophy, theology and history. These influences have come together to form my story and how I tell it.

I firmly believe all truth is for the purpose of feeling our way towards God and finding Him. I am not a syncretist. I do not believe that all things in all philosophies are true. But all philosophies contain elements of truth. And these elements point to a greater truth. What my story has revealed to me is that truth and its universal laws existed long before any man-made philosophy or religion.

I am not a master of theology, philosophy or any other subject, but a fellow seeker. Our journeys are all unique and singular. What I find interesting is that the questions we are often asking are not. People have asked these same questions in their stories for thousands of years. The goal of understanding the philosophies of the past is not simply for information. It is for understanding its implications for our future. We are not the first people to ask the questions we are asking. The way that the people of the past answered those questions has determined the present. The way we answer these questions now will determine the future.

You must understand that you are a philosopher. I am too. We all are. We make decisions every day, and our philosophy is simply our criteria for making decisions. The question is not whether we will be a philosopher, its whether we will be a good one.

Context

“The mystery of life is not a problem to be solved; it is a reality to be experienced” // Søren Kierkegaard (Source)

Our life is a story we are writing with every decision we make. This story began the day we were born. Every day we live, we write more lines and chapters.

Not every story becomes a masterpiece. Not every person lives a good life. What’s the key difference between a good life and a bad one? What’s the key difference between a good and bad story? Context.

In storytelling, the way a story is told matters just as much as the content of the story. Context is the structure of the story. Context gives a story meaning and importance. It’s what helps us understand the story. Without the right context, stakes are unclear, events feel random and it’s unclear why things matter. This is what happens when we see life as a singular problem to solve. Seeing life as a problem often means that we separate ourselves from our context. There are problems in life, just like there are points of conflict within a story. However, in a story, problems are interconnected. To see our lives as a reality we experience means that we understand that problems are not random events. They are the context of our unique story.

The wrong questions in the wrong order

The first problem we have in telling our story is the kind of questions we are asking. There is a difference between treating symptoms and causes. A broken leg can cause intense pain. If we give a person with a broken leg painkillers, they will feel better temporarily. But painkillers won’t heal the break, no matter how strong they are. They will only treat the symptom (pain) of the cause (a broken leg). By numbing the pain, we solve one problem, but not the main problem. And if we numb the pain for long enough, we may make it worse because we will “feel better” and think we are fine. One of the reasons why we prefer to treat symptoms is because of how straightforward those solutions are. It’s easier (and less painful) to take a pill than it is to set a broken bone or wear a cast during the healing process. But that will only bring temporary relief.

We often assume that our problem is a lack of money, fame, position, influence, success, etc. I’ve heard many people sum these up as the “three P’s”; power, pleasure and possessions. We believe that if we can gain some, or all of these things, we will have solved our greatest problem. However, we don’t want these things for themselves. We want them because of what we think they will mean to us once we acquire them. We think they will make us happy. We think that acquiring them is the substance of a good life. We think they will make our lives meaningful. We are misdiagnosing our problem. Which leads us to ask the wrong questions.

What we call our problem is often only the visible form of a deeper hunger. Our real problem is that we lack meaning. We are unhappy and unfulfilled. We think the cause of our lack of meaning is a lack of the three P’s.

We have a broken bone and think that taking more painkillers will fix the broken bone. The process for healing the broken bone is completely different than the process for managing the pain. Power, pleasure and posessions can improve our lives. But they won’t solve our problem. In fact, they can make the problem worse. Often, when a bone heals in the wrong position it can cause further pain, deformity, and a loss of function. Many times, surgeons must correct these problems by cutting (rebreaking the bone in a controlled way), realigning it and fixing it with hardware like screws and pins. The same can be true in our lives. A person can learn to live trying to numb their pain, avoiding what hurts and managing their dysfunction. This will only lead to more problems. There is a process to healing a broken bone. By avoiding that process we delay healing as well as make our lives harder. The same is true in our own story. Without treating the cause of our pain, it will never be healed. We must learn to understand that we are primarily seeking meaning. This is our question.

Understanding that life is a reality to experience means that we see our life as a story. It’s not that life doesn’t have problems. Seeing life as a reality is having an understanding that problems are not random. They not isolated, they belong to a structure. They are interconnected. If we do not understand the order of life, we will misunderstand the problems within it. That doesn’t mean that life is always logical. Sequence is the order that things happen in, logic is the reason they connect to each other. In storytelling, the sequence of a story is its timeline. Every story has a beginning, middle and end. This is sequence. Our brains are wired to perceive everything this way. Learning this about ourselves, we can learn to ask the right questions in the right order.

The right questions in the right order

There’s a story we tell ourselves about our life. That story begins in our past. These events are a reality. There are events, and there are what the events mean. The past happened, but it also did not explain itself. What matters more than what happened in the past is the meaning we have given to it.

Our present is a combination of the story we tell ourselves about the past, and what we believe that means for our future. The past doesn’t exist anymore, and the future doesn’t exist yet. What the past “means” is something we decide for ourselves. It is important that we understand meaning because the future is created by the decisions we make today. The decisions we make today are directly influenced by the story we tell ourselves about the past. Or, what we have decided that the past means to us. Our lives are a story – reality – that is layered.

Layer 1 - The world outside of us

When a person is a child, they spend most of their time trying to understand the world around them. They rarely think about themselves, or their decisions. When we ask children why they do what they do, they say “I don’t know” more than any other answer. If you ask a child to explain who they are, they probably won’t understand the question outside of being able to say their name. Of course this is dependent on their age. The older a person gets, the more they develop identifiers and become aware of what makes “them” them. What a child spends most of their time trying to do, is make sense of the world that they are living in. As of writing this, I have three daughters, an eight-year-old, a six-year-old and a two-year-old. The number one question I get from them is: “Why?” Why is the sky blue? Why does the wind blow? Why do leaves fall off trees? Why does thunder make noise? Why do you have grey hair? Why is the moon following us around? Why does ice melt? Why is it so hot outside? (we live in Texas) Why does that person look like that?

The second most-asked question is “What?” What makes rain? What is dirt made of? What is blood for? What is a boy/girl? What is that smell? What does this button do? When we ask these kind of questions, we are primarily talking about:

1. The past

2. Things we can’t control

The first part of our journey is trying to understand this first layer of reality. Some of the most important distinctions we can make are made here. This is when we begin to understand that there are some things we can’t control, and some we can. As well as what is real and true and what is not real and false.

Layer 2 - The world inside us

As we grow older, we begin to consider the next part of our journey. We start to think about the world inside of us. Psychology calls this self-consciousness. This also comes in the form of why and what questions. What am I good at? Why do I feel this way? Why am I different from those people? What do I like/dislike? What’s wrong with me? Why do I have to do hard things? Why do I care what they think? We also add a new question. “Who?” Who am I? Who am I supposed to be? Who do I want to be? These kinds of question describe:

1. The present

2. Things we have some control over

As we grow, we learn to navigate these two layers of reality. None of these realities are cleanly separated. They ask different questions. Sometimes these questions come simultaneously, but we get to decide what order we answer them in. We all have experiences. Some we control, some we can’t control. We have a response to those experiences. The way we see ourselves is often defined by how we see our experiences. Simultaneously, the way we see our experiences is defined by how we see ourselves.

Let me give you an example. In my experience, all cats are evil and I hate them. I know hate is a strong word to use. The dictionary definition of hate is “intense or passionate dislike.” I hate cats. Growing up, I had a babysitter who had cats. I’m sure there are good cats and bad cats in the world. These cats were supremely evil. They would go out of their way to bite me, scratch me, and generally disturb me. All of this was before I found out I was allergic to them. I would wonder why anyone would keep a cat if they sneak attack you, make your nose run, eyes itch, and sneeze almost uncontrollably. Based on my experiences – what happens to me – with cats, I have concluded something about myself – what happens inside of me. I am not a cat person and never will be. I am not sure I will ever associate with people who are cat people. This process is subconscious for us. Experiences provoke responses. These responses can transform into our identity. This identity then dictates our choices.

Layer 3 - The world we create

There is a third layer. The reality we create – the decisions we make every day. What should I do? Who am I trying to impress? What do I want out of life? Who do I want to become? What happens if I fail? What is expected of me? What do I owe myself? What do I owe to others? Why am I alive? What is my purpose? Who do I trust? Who do I love? Why do I trust/love them? These questions are about how the decisions we make every day affect who we are and the world around us. When we consider these questions, we are thinking about:

1. The future

2. What we can control

Three realities, three steps

Instead of trying to answer all the questions at once, what if we tried to answer them in sequence? This is not just where a child starts, it’s where ancient philosophers started. They attempted to make sense of the world before trying to make sense of themselves. After making sense of themselves, they realized the power they had to live a good, meaningful life. There seems to be three simple questions that lead us to living a meaningful life.

1. What is truth? – The reality outside of us

What truth is, why it matters, and how we can distinguish it from falsehood.

2. Who am I? – The reality inside of us

Our desires, identity, inner conflict and the discipline required to live a good life.

3. What is the meaning of life? – The reality we create

A good life is built through virtue, responsibility, purpose and following Jesus.

These questions are simple to ask, but hard to answer. They are what have led me on a search through theology, philosophy, history and myth. I don’t believe this search ends with more questions. It ends with a logical answer. There is a Way to live a good life. This is not an idea to simply understand. The Way is a person to be followed. The human journey through truth, identity and meaning finds its fulfillment in Jesus. Not as one option among many, but as the culmination of what philosophy sought, what myth hints at, and what we have always longed for.

Story

Athens. 4th century BC. The greatest city in the ancient world. The birthplace of democracy, of philosophy, and of the most valuable form of power in Greek civilization, rhetoric.

In Athens, there were no lawyers. And no courts as we know them today. If you had a grievance, a claim, an accusation, you stood up in front of a jury 500 or more citizens and made it yourself. The people who heard your case would vote based almost entirely on who was more persuasive. You had to argue your case yourself. And it ultimately didn’t matter who was right, it mattered who was most persuasive.

When Demosthenes was seven years old, his father - a wealthy sword-maker - died. His appointed guardians did what corrupt people do with other people’s money, they spent it. By the time Demosthenes came of age, his inheritance (land, money and even a working factory) was nearly gone.

His guardians were not concerned or afraid of him. They had watched him grow up. He was physically frail, had a speech disorder and was a poor speaker. And in Athens, if you could not speak, you could not win, regardless of whether you were right. Enforcement of the law was not a matter of facts. It was a matter of whoever stood before five hundred men and persuaded them. These guardians had the confidence to steal from Demosthenes because they knew he couldn’t fight back.

He tried anyway. His first attempt at speaking publicly before the Athenian assembly ended in humiliation. The crowd didn’t just ignore him, or disagree with him. They jeered and mocked him. He had a weak voice, a stammer, short breath, and poor delivery. He was laughed off the platform. He tried to speak again another time and they refused to hear him. He was taunted and insulted publicly by his guardians.

This is where most people’s story ends. Their failure confirms what they already believe about themselves. Their setbacks become permanent verdicts. Demosthenes knew he was a poor speaker, but he resolved not to remain one.

He went to see one of the greatest actors and speakers in Athens, Satyrus. He told him about his father’s death, the stolen inheritance and his failure to defend himself. Satyrus asked Demosthenes to recite a passage from a Greek tragedy. Demosthenes did. Then Satyrus performed the same passage back to him.

The difference was immediate and clear to Demosthenes. What he had delivered was flat, lifeless, and unconvincing. Satyrus spoke in such a way that the passage came alive. What was the difference between him and Satyrus? Satyrus saw himself as a great communicator. Demosthenes saw himself as frail, strange, uncultured and uneducated. It wasn’t the speech impairment, or the crowd, it was how he saw himself.

Demosthenes resolved to do everything he could to become a great orator. He created a disciplined program to work on his diction, voice, delivery and gestures. Demosthenes built an underground study to practice speaking. He would also shave half his head to force himself to stay inside and practice instead of going out in public. He ran uphill while reciting speeches to build breath control. He would speak loudly at the seashore over crashing waves to learn to project above noise. He placed small stones in his mouth to train his tongue to form words clearly, and practiced in front of a large mirror for hours.

Eventually, he prosecuted his guardians and won. Demosthenes became the greatest communicator in the ancient world. He made his living as a rhetorician, wrote speeches for wealthy and powerful men, and became a teacher of rhetoric.

Truth

Think about this: your performance is a reflection of your self-esteem, not a measurement of it.

Most people think the opposite. They think when they do well, they are worth something. And when they don’t, they aren’t. These people are constantly at the mercy of their results - or lack thereof. Every setback makes them want to quit. Every critical statement is like a stab in the heart. The gap between where they are and where they want to be becomes the reason for them to believe they will never get there.

Think about driving a car. Very few people get behind the wheel thinking they will wreck. It’s not arrogance for you to get in your car everyday, believing you will make it to your destination safely. Your confidence in your driving ability is not fake or manufactured. It is the accumulation of your training and experience. When you first started driving, you may have been afraid, but over time, there is none. This is what people miss most often about self-esteem. You aren’t comfortable because you tell yourself you’re a good driver. You’re comfortable because you have driven enough times to know you have become a good driver. You have evidence.

Alex Hormozi said it this way: “You don’t become confident by shouting affirmations in the mirror, but by having a stack of undeniable proof that you are who you say you are. Outwork your self doubt.”

If you want to win, you need self-esteem. If you want self-esteem, you need to build it. To build self-esteem, you need to work to build it. Your outer success - or lack thereof - is a reflection if the inner price you have been willing to pay to cultivate confidence in yourself.

This is why nothing is more important than how you see yourself.

And there is no greater work than the work you do on yourself.

Practice

Demosthenes developed a training program to develop himself and is self-esteem. Denis Waitley was a naval aviator who became a motivational speaker, writer and consultant. He spent a lot of his life studying the psychology of success and described 10 daily action steps for self-esteem:

1. Greet everyone you meet with a smile.

   Smiling is the first, and easiest thing you can do to add value to any room you are in.

2. Answer the phone pleasantly.

   Small moments are where you train yourself to act like a winner.

3. When you are driving, listen to something that helps you grow.

   Turn your car into a classroom.

4. Invest in coaching.

   Winners always have people in their life who correct, direct and encourage them in their greatness journey.

5. When someone compliments you, say thank you.

   Do not play it down. Deflecting a compliment is not humility — it is a small act of self-deprecation.

6. Do not brag.

   Only the insecure need to talk about their achievements. The confident let the results speak for themselves.

7. Do not share your problems with people who are not part of the solution.

   Venting teaches you to tell the wrong story. Anyone who can hear your problems and not be a part of the solution will not help you see yourself better. They will only agree with your negativity.

8. Find a “master mind” and become a “master mime.”

   Find someone you see as a master, and do everything you can to imitate their greatness.

9. Look at your mistakes as the tuition you pay for greatness.

   My dad has always said “you never lose if you learn.” The only true failure is a failure to learn. You are not failing. You are paying the price of an education that cannot be found in any classroom.

10. Spend one day a week doing something you really love.

    It’s hard to enjoy yourself when you don’t enjoy your life.

Pick 1, 3, 5 or even all 10 and start applying them to your life. I bet you’ll be pleasantly surprised by the results.

We all want more.
Money, followers, influence, achievement, peace, rest, friends, meaning, purpose.

Why do we want more of these things. Simply, we want to be happy, and we want more happiness. And we think these things will bring happiness to us^.

We have an assumption: the problem is that we just don’t have enough of “X” yet. Once we get more, we’ll finally be able to be happy.

I’m not sure that’s ever really happened for anybody.

Story

Alexander the Great (326-323BC) became the king of Macedon (an ancient kingdom north of Greece) at the age of 20 when his father Philip II was assassinated. He immediately set out to do what his father was planning before his death: conquer the Persian Empire.

He marched through Asia Minor (modern day Turkey) defeating Persian forces, taking major cities, and winning countless battles. He eventually took control of all Persian land, wealth and prestige. He eventually made his way to India. In his twenties, he had conquered most of the known world. His empire stretched over 3000 miles from Greece to Egypt to India. The only problem was that it wasn’t the entire world.

Once Alexander reached India, his army refused to go any further and he decided he wouldn’t compel them to march by force. He had heard a philosopher named Anaxarchus talk about the possibility of an infinite number of worlds, and he began to weep. When he was asked why, he answered, “I am not yet lord of one.” (Source) Or, as Hans Gruber put it in Die Hard; “And when Alexander saw the breadth of his domain, he wept, for there were no more worlds to conquer.”

Everyone had hit their limit except Alexander. His success didn’t end his striving, it only increased it. His appetites could not be satisfied. The world was not enough for him. In the years that followed he drank heavily, executed close friends out of rage and spiraled out of control. He would die in Babylon at the age of 32 without an heir and his empire fell apart.

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Truth

Fundamentally, we all want happiness. This is the core pursuit of humanity. No one told us we should want to be happy. We never stop to even consider whether or not happiness is a worthwhile goal. The United States Declaration of Independence shares this idea that the right to pursue happiness is a God-given right endowed to all people.

I think we should do everything that we can to pursue happiness. Being happy is a good thing, and it is a worthwhile goal.

The problem is not the pursuit of happiness. It is our definition.

Like Alexander, we can easily assume happiness arrives from some external source. Conquest, validation, achievement, status, wealth. If we can just get “more” then we’ll be happy. More money, more friends, more enlightenment, more peace, more approval from the right crowd…

It’s like climbing a mountain, believing that the peak is going to be worth it. Steven Covey thought about it like climbing a ladder. In Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, he wrote that we can spend our whole lives climbing the ladder of success only to discover it is leaning against the wrong wall.

The tragedy of Alexander is not that he failed. He achieved total victory. The problem was his definition of success.

Aristotle — Alexander’s own tutor — divided the things we pursue into two categories: limited goods and unlimited goods.

Limited goods are things that run out (hence the term “limited”) . Money, power, fame, status. They are real and they matter, but they are means, not ends. “Money is evidently not the good we are seeking,” Aristotle wrote, “for it is merely useful for the sake of something else.” Limited goods aren’t just limited in their supply, they are also limited in how much they will actually contribute to your happiness.

Unlimited goods work differently. Wisdom, courage, justice, love. These do not run out. They are also unlimited in how much they help you be happy. The more you pursue them, the better your life becomes. They cannot be taken away from you by anything you can’t control.

We have placed the ladder on the wrong wall when we think that having more limited goods will make us happy.

We have placed the ladder on the right wall when we know that having more unlimited goods will lead to our happiness.

The Stoics built their entire philosophy on this distinction. Happiness is not something that comes to you as a result of external validation. It is something you cultivate — through living a life of virtue. Culture changes. Circumstances change. Feelings change. Definitions of success can change based on many factors. Virtue doesn’t change. Virtues are things that are always right, always good and always true.

In other words, we should pursue happiness. But we should also be intentional about happiness’ definition. Happiness isn’t about having more, it’s about being more.

We won’t gain happiness by conquest. Happiness comes as a result of building our character.

Practice

Marcus Aurelius wrote in Meditations: “You must have these principles at hand both night and day; you must write them down; you must read them.”

Our life is filled with decisions. The decisions we make are a result of a criteria we have internally. Those are called our values.

When we make a decision, of course we are attempting to make a good one. What causes the distinction between a good and bad decision? The criteria we use.

You and I have values, but not every value is a virtue. In other words, we all have criteria for making decisions. Not all our criteria are always right, always good and always true. Some of my criteria are limited goods.

In order to be happy, as much of my criteria as possible should be virtuous (unlimited good).

So, this week /

1. Think about the kind of unlimited goods you’d like to pursue. What thing that is always right, good and true would make you truly happy (make you a better person)?

2. Consider the decisions you have to make.

3. Assess their goodness. Which option leads you more towards an unlimited good?

Story

When Hercules was a young man, he came to a fork in the road on an unfamiliar path and sat down to think.

He didn’t just think of which path to take. He began to think about his future. He was at a crossroads - figuratively and literally.

As he sat there, two women appeared — one on each road.

The first was beautiful, dressed in fine clothes, smiling. Her name was Kakia. She told him her road was easy. On this road there was no suffering, no adversity, no struggle. In fact, the whole road was basically a shortcut. Everything he needed would be given to him, his dreams would simply come true and he would live like a king.

The second woman was plainly dressed and her face was serious. Her name was Arete. She told Hercules her path was quite different. She warned him her road would be long and sometimes painful. He would have to learn courage. He would have to learn discipline. He would face things that hurt. Nothing truly good, she said, could be bought without effort.

Hercules chose Arete.

The women’s names give away what the choice really is. Kakia meant vice, wickedness and depravity. Arete meant excellence and virtue — the full expression of what a person was made to be. The choice we have in common is what we choose at the crossroads. A life of vice or virtue.

The Greeks used the term arete for everything. It illustrates excellence of any kind. A knife had arete when it cut well. A horse had arete when it ran fast. A person had arete when they became the best version of themselves.

The whole story is asking one question: how do you become your best?

Truth

Aristotle said: “It is impossible to be wise without being good.” The Bible puts the same idea in Proverbs 9, where wisdom and folly are personified as two women calling out from the streets — presenting the same choice Hercules faced.

But what is wisdom? Wisdom isn’t what you know. It’s what you do with what you know.

You can read every book ever written and still live like a fool. You can quote Socrates and Solomon and never become either. Information isn’t transformation. The proof of wisdom is never in how you think — no one can see how you think. The proof is in how you act, and what your life produces.

So how do you become wise? Not the way most people assume.

Solomon wrote a whole book (Proverbs) about this, and the answer he keeps returning to is:

Whoever loves discipline loves knowledge, but he who hates correction is stupid. (Proverbs 12:1)

Wisdom starts with how you respond to correction.

Most of us hate it. Someone points out our blind spot and our first move is defense — they don’t know the whole story, they don’t understand my situation, they’re being unfair. Or even I already know what they are trying to teach me.

But why does correction happen? It’s not because we don’t know something. It’s because we aren’t doing something. And what then is the goal of correction?

To get us to do what needs to happen without having to be told.

In other words, if you don’t want to be corrected, accept the correction and fix it. And then don’t need correction next time.

That’s our simple definition of wisdom for today.

Wisdom is learning to correct yourself.

When you learn to correct yourself, you will seldom need correction from others. That’s the path of Arete - of being your best. Wisdom is not the absence of mistakes, it is the willingness to see them, own them, and change. The person who can do that grows. The person who can’t, doesn’t, no matter how smart they are or how much they claim to have learned.

So either we can learn to love correction, or we can be stupid. We can be our best, or we can be our worst.

We’re choosing between them every day, in a hundred small ways. Mostly without noticing.

Practice

This week, pay attention to the next time someone corrects you or gives you feedback.

It can be your spouse, your boss, your child, a stranger, or a one-star review.

Whatever it is, notice your first reaction. Most of us go straight to defense before we’ve even considered whether the feedback is valid.

Before you respond, ask yourself one question:

What if this is true?

Not is it fair? Not do they understand my situation? Don’t justify with statements like I’m trying my best or negative self talk.

Just / what if it’s true.

Think about it for ten seconds before you say anything.

Be careful, considering this question this might change your life.

Because the goal of every correction — from a boss, a friend, a stranger, or God himself — is to get you to the place where you can correct yourself. And once you can do that, you’ve stepped into being your best.

One story, one truth, one practice. Every week.

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It’s been about a month since I last wrote here. That break has most definitely not been intentional. Although I have been writing quite a bit /

I finished ghost writing a book that’s going to release soon this year.

Completed a book that may not come out anytime soon.

Completed a book proposal for a book that should release in 2027.

One of my biggest lessons as a communicator in the last 12 months has been: There’s a difference between what I want to say and what people need to hear.

This seems like a small distinction. But it’s not. There are many great thinkers out there whose thoughts could change the world. The problem is not the quality of their thinking, it is the quality of their presentation. It’s one thing to think well about an issue, it’s another thing entirely to be able to communicate your thinking well.

It seems like every communicator has a strength on one side of the spectrum and has to learn how to work on the other side. There are many charismatic communicators whose thoughts are not well thought out. There are also many great thinkers whose communication style turns us off completely from their thinking. I’m not sure if this strength is natural or acquired. For me personally, I have spent much of my life learning about how to think. I have also spent a lot of time learning to communicate. However, there’s a gap. What I have realized that I learned is how to communicate what I want to say. On one hand that’s important, on the other hand, that doesn’t really help people.

When you spend a lot of time thinking about what you want to say, an interesting phenomenon happens. In Psychology, it’s called the Curse of Knowledge. People that have a lot of information tend to overestimate how much other people know. In other words, once you know something really well, it becomes difficult for you to remember what it was like to not know it. As a result, an expert on a subject will often explain things at a level that beginners can’t follow. There’s a danger to becoming an expert in anything. When a person becomes an expert, it is easy for them to forget what it’s like to be a beginner. Which can then make them unable to help beginners. This has potential to be a significant problem. Who do beginners need the most help from? Experts.

One of the most famous examples of the curse of knowledge came from Stanford researcher Elizabeth Newton. She performed a simple study where she asked people to tap the rhythm of a song on a table for someone who didn’t know which song they were tapping. She asked the tappers what the likelihood would be that the listeners would identify the song. They thought they would ~50% of the time. The actually success rate was ~2-3%.

Why? Because the tapper hears the entire song in their head. The listener just hears tapping. This is the curse of knowledge. The expert hears music, the beginner hears tapping.

Experts in every field can often forget how hard it was to learn things that have become simple for them. In fact, all the research points to the fact that the more of an expert someone becomes in any field; parenting, leadership, communication, medicine, etc. the harder it is for them to actually be an effective teacher.

For much of my life, until my late teens, I played multiple musical instruments. Piano, guitar and the saxophone. One of my guitar teachers was a legitimate genius-level guitar prodigy. I remember the day he tried to teach me chord inversions. They are incredibly useful, and a significant part of mastering the guitar. Inverted chords can be played faster, since you don’t have to move your hands up and down the fretboard as much. They add a lot of depth to the music you are playing, and they help a guitar player master the fretboard. Using inverted chords is a simple concept, but can be difficult to master because you are playing chords completely differently than your muscle memory. I remember asking him how he was able to contort his fingers so easily and his answer was: “I don’t know, I just do it.” I’m pretty sure that was my last lesson with him. The truth is, even if he is a prodigy, there was a day where inversions were hard for him. He had just forgotten it.

Think about when you try to teach your kids something that you are familiar with. How hard is it for them to follow the most basic instructions? It can be hard for an adult to control their attitude, even if they have a lifetime of experience and training. How much harder is it for a five-year old who doesn’t?

Ultimately, the question is not “how good is my content?” It’s “can someone who doesn’t know what I know understand what I am saying?” This is the battle that every teacher, writer, leader, and parent faces. The better we become at something, the easier it is to forget what it was like when we started.

So, how am I learning to fix it?

1. Starting with the question - “What do they need to hear?” Instead of “What do I want to say?”

There’s still plenty of room for what I want to say, but only after I’ve considered what people need to hear. What I want to say is the endpoint, what they need to hear is the starting point. Great leaders/communicators understand how to take the journey from what people need to hear, to what they want to say.

2. Storytelling

Abstract information is rarely helpful. Jesus taught through story and metaphor for a reason. Truth is easier to grasp through stories than simple information

3. Think like a beginner

“In the end, people are not looking for a better idea, they are looking to do life better.” // Erwin McManus

Better ideas help people do life better. But only once they’ve been shown how the idea can practically help them right now. There are so many great ideas out there, so why aren’t they helping more people? Because the people who have these great ideas are not connecting the dots for their audience. People don’t need more information, they need more helpful information. Our lives are filled with real, practical, daily challenges. If the information I’m being presented with right now doesn’t help me right now then I don’t care about the information.

It is not the responsibility of the listener to understand the practicality of a message, it’s the responsibility of the communicator. It is not my children’s job to understand what I am saying, it is my job to make myself understandable.

This, like much of life is not a binary issue. This is a tension between two ends of a spectrum, and we should always be working to find the balance. And the balance will be different in each relationship and room we happen to be in. This lesson is visceral for me right now. I just spent most of last year writing a book that I wanted to write, but when I showed it to my agent, the biggest feedback I got was “I’m not sure this is a message people need/want to hear.” You might say, “well, that’s just one person, publish the book anyway.” And cite JK Rowling, Mark Victor Hansen and various other authors who were rejected by publishers many times before writing a bestseller. That is certainly one path.

However, it really wasn’t just one person’s feedback. My book was shown to multiple publishing people and they had the same feedback. In addition, this is in line with the same kind of feedback I have gotten over the past few years as a speaker from my audiences. So, maybe I’m supposed to listen to it. Just maybe.

Ken Blanchard said “feedback is the breakfast of champions.” And I trust experts in my life who actually want to help me succeed. The first book I wrote was great practice. That writing may see the light of day. The good news is that I think we’ve hit on an idea that I’m excited about, my agent and publishers will be excited about too. Overall, I write this much about this lesson for me, because hopefully my lesson will be yours too. Remember your own curse of knowledge and mitigate it.

Letters

This week I am launching a new short-form email simply called Letters.

For most of human history, the best ideas in the world weren’t in books. They were in letters.

The New Testament is mostly a collection of letters. Many of Paul’s writings were letters to specific people and churches dealing with specific problems.

Seneca wrote letters to his friend Lucilius near the end of his life. They were practical reflections on friendship, anger, death, suffering and virtue written to a younger friend. Two thousand years later, Letters from a Stoic is one of the most accessible introductions to Stoicism.

A letter is more thoughtful than a conversation, more personal than an essay and often more practical than a book.

So, you’ll be getting a letter from me weekly containing timeless lessons for living better right now. Each letter contains a story, truth and practice to help you master the art of living. The first one goes out this Friday, June 5.

If you could, forward that email to your friends. Read it to your kids and show it to your coworkers.

I’ll still be writing a lot of longer-form stuff. But considering all that I just wrote above, it’s time for me to think a little better about the practicality of what I am communicating.

In the world of eastern philosophy, Confucius taught that comfort and prosperity have their place, but they should never be placed above our moral duty to others. Confucius acknowledged that “riches and honors are what men desire,” but he immediately cautioned: “If they cannot be obtained in the proper way, they should not be held.” (Source) In Confucian thought, it was not inherently wrong to have money or a high position, provided these things were attained with integrity and used to ease other people’s economic burdens, practice charity, and live modestly. The ideal Confucian leader “keeps propriety (the right way to act in every situation) even in wealth” and “shares it with the people.” Confucianism views wealth as morally neutral but dangerous: it is acceptable and even beneficial if gained and used in accordance with virtue, justice, and helping others, but it becomes a vice when pursued at the expense of righteousness or when it leads to arrogance and moral complacency.

In Hinduism, the framework for a good life is called पुरुषार्थ (Puruṣārtha), meaning “the purpose of a human being” or “the object of human pursuit” (Source) In Hinduism, there are four goals that are necessary for a fulfilling and happy life:

1. धर्म (Dharma) - Living according to virtue

2. अर्थ (Artha) - Material wealth and security

3. काम (Kama) - Pleasure and beauty

4. मोक्ष (Moksha) - Freedom from ignorance

Material prosperity is recognized as a legitimate goal in life, but is a part of pursuing a larger picture of living a good life. The Encyclopedia Britannica summarizes it by saying “As the immoderate pursuit of material advantage would lead to ruinous excesses, artha must always be regulated by the superior aim of dharma (righteousness).” (Source). Wealth is seen as a positive when it is the fruit of the pursuit of virtue, and enables generosity. Gandhi summarized it this way: “Earth provides enough to satisfy every man’s needs, not every man’s greed.” (Source)

Siddhartha Gautama - The Buddha - was born a prince and was surrounded by luxury for much of his early life. He famously renounced his wealth in the pursuit of enlightenment. In Buddhism, craving and clinging to material things is an impediment to spiritual liberation. The Four Noble truths (चत्वारि आर्यसत्यानि) are the key tenets of Buddhism. They are considered by Buddhists to be the proper view of reality. They are:

1. दुःख (Duhka) - Life is suffering

2. समुदय (Samudaya) - Suffering is caused by craving external things we cannot control

3. निरोध (Nirodha) - Suffering can be ended when we stop craving external things

4. मार्ग (Marga) - To stop these improper cravings, we must practice the “Noble Eightfold Path”: “Right view, right resolve, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, right concentration.” (Source)

The central thought of Buddhism is that life is suffering, and our suffering is caused by improper desires. It’s worth mentioning here that the Buddhist idea of suffering is not how we define suffering in the West. Suffering is more of a synonym for dissatisfaction. If we are dissatisfied for long enough, or in a significant enough way, this can certainly lead to suffering. So, life is dissatisfaction. Dissatisfaction is caused by craving external things. Dissatisfaction is ended when we stop craving these things.

Greed for money and possessions is an example of this type of craving. Buddhist teachings caution that the pursuit of wealth for its own sake increases dissatisfaction. Inner contentment is to be valued above everything else. A person who is content and free from greed is considered truly rich in spirit. Buddha himself said that “Health is the greatest gift, contentment is the greatest wealth, a trusted friend is the best relative, Nirvana is the highest bliss.” (Source) There is also a series of teachings called the Sigalovada Sutta in which a merchant sought the Buddha’s advice on how to live life virtuously. In these teachings, Buddha discusses obtaining and managing wealth. He says that “the wise man gathers wealth as a bee collects honey.” A bee is able to collect pollen and cultivate honey without destroying flowers, or other bees. And the bee slowly collects it bit by bit. Once wealth is collected, Buddha gives four steps to balancing money:

1. Enjoy it and consume it to balance your needs.

2. Invest it and use it for your education and growth.

3. Save and deposit it for the future.

4. Support friends, family, the community and religious causes.

Wealth is not meant to be used in ego-driven, or unhealthy ways, and comes with moral responsibility. Attachment to wealth, stinginess and greed are spiritual poisons that bind a person to a life full of suffering.

tl;dr

The Bible, eastern and western philosophy all converge to a singular point: wealth is a useful servant and a terrible master. Wealth is a double-sided coin. It can support a virtuous life, and create a more ethical world for everyone to live in. Or, it can corrupt us, and greed creates a worse world for everyone. The goal of living is to seek virtue and wisdom, prosperity is a tool, not an outcome.

Traditions on prosperity attempt to answer this question: “how can I embrace prosperity and deny the love of money?” Now that we understand the nature and origin of traditions, let’s look at how they have progressed throughout our history. Although we have defined prosperity in a bigger context than money. Most ancient thinking - like ours - about prosperity is centered around the accumulation of physical wealth.

Let’s start with the Old and New Testaments. In the Old Testament, prosperity was seen as a sign of divine favor for following God’s commandments. From the beginning of Abraham’s journey, the Israelites sought prosperity - a promised land from God. God promised to bless them if they followed His commandments. There is no doubt that God enabled people all throughout the story of the Old Testament to achieve prosperity in all its forms and that it was a sign of God’s hand on their life. In the New Testament, prosperity is something meant to help others through generosity. The New Testament doesn’t deny prosperity. If the Old Testament tells us that prosperity comes from God, the New Testament tells us the purpose of prosperity. Every person who receives the “good news” and comes out of a poverty mindset has a responsibility. The responsibility attached to the prosperity God gives us is to help other people prosper. There are parts of the New Testament that are critical of prosperity. All New Testament criticisms on prosperity have the same core issue: prosperity without the purpose of generosity. The problem in the New Testament world was not rich people. It was rich people who did not see the purpose of their wealth attached to the responsibility of generosity.

non-biblical perspectives

What were the ancient non-biblical perspectives on wealth? What are the views of western and eastern philosophers who were living in and around the same time period? The Bible, eastern and western philosophy all converge to a singular point: wealth is a useful servant and a terrible master. Wealth is a double-sided coin. It can support a virtuous life, and create a more ethical world for everyone to live in. Or, it can corrupt us, and greed creates a worse world for everyone. The goal of living is to seek virtue and wisdom, prosperity is a tool, not an outcome.

In Plato’s Apology, Socrates declares that “virtue does not come from money, but from virtue comes money and all other good things to man” (Source). His perspective was that financial wealth was not essential for a good life, but the pursuit of virtue is. Chasing money without virtue corrupts the soul, but chasing virtue instead of money brings all good things into our lives.

In The Republic, Plato portrays both excessive wealth and poverty as threats to social harmony and virtue. His solution is to eliminate the majority of private property. He believed that “None must possess any private property save the indispensable,” and the leaders of society are told they already have “gold and silver of divine quality in their souls, so they have no need of the metal of men…since many impious deeds have been done because of [mortal] gold” (Source). Plato argues that physical wealth is not inherently evil, but must be held in check by justice and virtue. Wealth is a potential vice unless it is held in check by wisdom. Prosperity is only acceptable when it does not compromise ethical conduct, or the well-being of others.

Aristotle saw wealth as a means to an end. In the Nicomachean Ethics, he says: “The life of money-making is one undertaken under compulsion, and wealth is evidently not the good we are seeking; for it is merely useful and for the sake of something else” (Source). Like his teacher Plato, and Plato’s teacher Socrates, Aristotle sees the pursuit of wealth for the sake of wealth as not good. Wealth was a tool that could enable virtue or vice depending on the ethics of the wealthy person. Wealth could support a good life, but a love of riches for their own sake was a “narrowness of soul” and did not lead to a good life.

“Now we see things imperfectly, like puzzling reflections in a mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity. All that I know now is partial and incomplete, but then I will know everything completely, just as God now knows me completely. Three things will last forever—faith, hope, and love—and the greatest of these is love.” (1 Corinthians 13:12-13 NLT)

You may think I’m wrong in my interpretation of what Jesus meant here and here. Maybe I am. There’s often a vast difference between interpretation and Scripture, and tradition and truth. To understand this difference requires us to be willing to admit that we are incapable of truly seeing things with a Divine mind.

To repeat John MacArthur again: “I know I’m wrong in my theology, I’m just not sure where.” That’s why charity/love in our approach to traditions and interpretations matters. It seems that no matter how hard we try to lay hold of truth, there will always be a nagging problem. Our mind makes sense of things through the lens of interpretation. Postmodernism tells us that truth is not universal or objective. It is constructed in some way through the lens of human perception. Many postmodern thinkers suppose that truth is not absolute, and is always shifting based on biases, interpretations and power dynamics. However, at the heart of postmodern thinking is a self-defeating paradox: the statement “absolute truth does not exist.” If this statement is true, then at least one absolute truth does exist. That truth is not absolute. Which contradicts itself.

Truth and wisdom often go hand in hand. Socrates believed that wisdom was recognizing our ignorance of truth: “All I know is that I know nothing.”

Plato believed that truths were eternal “forms” that governed the physical world. He believed that the physical world was a shadow of forms. For instance, the “form” of a chair exists in all of our minds. So does the wheel. As far as we know, no one invented these things. People have created their own versions of these eternal forms, but what we create as a “chair” is the shadow of a form of a chair that is an eternal idea. Similarly, he believed that a person could approach the form of wisdom, but the physical world consists of shadows. A person could never be fully wise, because human wisdom is a shadow of the “form” of Divine wisdom.

Aristotle made this idea even more practical. He talked about the difference between σοφία (sophia) - theoretical wisdom - and φρόνησις (phronesis) - practical wisdom. Sophia is about understanding and thinking about eternal truths. Phronesis is about practically applying the knowledge of eternal truths to our lives. In Aristotle’s perspective, truth could be somewhat known. What matters more than knowing truth however, is the application of truth. In Aristotle’s mind, we become wise when we apply truth to our life through the pursuit of virtue, reason and the right kind of habits.

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The Stoics believed that living by virtue was our highest goal. Fully living by virtue was impossible, but there could be no better pursuit in life.

Augustine and Aquinas both argued that God is the creator of truth and wisdom. Through our pursuit of God, we can get closer to wisdom, but in our lifetime we will only partially grasp it.

The common thread we see through philosophy and theology is the idea that there is truth, and the pursuit/application of truth. Knowing truth is different from applying truth. Where postmodernism - the dominant approach for much of culture - seems to get it wrong is when it asserts that truth is not objective. Where postmodernism does seem to have clarity is on the subjective nature of truth. For human beings, truth is often unevenly, individually and subjectively applied to our lives. Truth will always be absolute, but its application will always be subjective. The postmodern idea of subjective truth then starts to make sense. Because even if objective truth exists, we are not able to be objective about the truth. That makes sense. However, that does not mean that truth becomes subjective.

This is where the pendulum often swings too far. Objective truth is like a bullseye on a target. Objective truth gives us a standard of measurement that is independent of our subjective application. The closer we align with truth, the better our lives become. A beginning archer can find hitting the bullseye difficult, but with training, they may be able to get close, or even hit it. Scoring more points, ie, living a better life. If we deny the existence of absolute truth, we don’t remove the bullseye. We give ourselves permission to move the bullseye to wherever our arrow happened to go. Even if we didn’t hit the target at all. In an archery competition, this could be frustrating, but is also not that consequential to life. However, imagine an archer in an ancient battle who had been trained to think that anywhere their arrow went would be the bullseye. They would be incompetent and at worst, useless to helping us to win the battle. Learning to hit the target isn’t about getting better at practice, its about instinctively developing the ability to hit the target when it matters.

Learning how to align our lives with objective truth matters because life is not a simple archery competition. The choices we make (arrows we shoot) have consequences. Good consequences are a result of actions aimed properly at truth. Bad consequences are a result of actions aimed improperly. If this framework did not exist, neither could the concepts of good and bad.

application is the problem

Another word we can use for the “application of truth to our lives” is tradition.

One of our key issues related to everything - not just prosperity - is not truth. It is the traditions - applications and interpretations - we have attached to truth. Many people have elevated their application of truth to the level of truth itself. In other words, like the problem Jesus described in Mark 7, we have elevated man-made ideas (interpretations) to the level of the commands of God. What do your traditions say about prosperity? In the context of your life, what do your traditions say about truth? Traditions, interpretations and applications are both unavoidable and subjective. When these things are not in alignment with truth, we have a decision to make. Will we cling to tradition like Pharisees? Or will we sacrifice the safety of our traditions on the altar of truth? This is why Paul said “the greatest of these is love” and Meldenius said “in all things charity.” No human being sees truth clearly, or applies it accurately. The human mind is not the Divine mind.

We don’t seem to have the ability to be precise in both our understanding and application of truth. One day, we will see things as God sees. We will transcend human thinking and imperfection. We will leave the world of shadows and enter the world of forms. Until that day, our understanding of truth will always be limited by our human mind. That does not mean it is not worth the pursuit. If wisdom is the ability to make finer distinctions, we must be able to draw a distinction between sophia and phronesis, Scripture and interpretation, truth and tradition. People who are unable to see this distinction think that traditions are truth. In order to understand what God wants to teach us about life, prosperity and everything else, we need to make sure that truth is given its rightful place above traditions. Not the other way around.

“Truth is so obscure in these times, and falsehood so established, that, unless we love the truth, we cannot know it.” / Blaise Pascal

“In essentials unity, in nonessentials liberty, in all things charity.” / Rupert Meldenius

What’s an essential?

There are certain things that are essential to Biblical faith that everyone must agree on. Some theologians say that starts with the Nicene Creed. Some say that it is the Apostle’s Creed, which predates the Nicene Creed. These creeds are helpful starts to understanding what is essential. Creeds can be helpful to give us an interpretation of essentials, but a creed only has the power that the truth of Scripture gives it. Traditions, creeds and interpretations work a lot like shortcuts. Sometimes, when you take a shortcut, you miss the meaning of the journey. Each person who claims to be a Christian must decide for themselves how deep they wish to go in truly understanding their faith, or just taking someone’s word for it. When we hold on to traditions, we are taking someone’s word for it. They may be right, they may be wrong. Regardless, they won’t experience the consequences of what we believe, we will. That’s why we need to be careful about what we choose to believe. We may all define essentials differently. But I would encourage you to not consider everything essential. An essential is the difference between heaven and hell.

non-essentials + charity

A non-essential is a preference. For instance, is speaking in tongues essential to getting into heaven? Most Charismatics would say no. Yet, much of their theology is all about the “evidence” of the Holy Spirit working in our lives being speaking in tongues. It’s that actually the evidence? There’s nothing wrong with differing opinions on this issue because it’s not essential for “getting into heaven.” Wherever something is not essential to Biblical faith, that’s where we can embrace liberty. Non-essentials work like flavors of ice cream. In this metaphor, an essential would be you and I agreeing that we should eat ice cream. In order to be my friend, you’ve got to agree that ice cream is a good thing. That’s really not the problem. The problem arises when you and I both go to the ice cream shop and expect the ship to only serve our flavor and nothing else. Because our flavor is the tastiest flavor. Non-essentials are the preferences (flavors) that we prefer the essentials to be packaged in. If you like vanilla, and I like strawberry, we can still eat ice cream together without having to eat the same flavor.

Finally, and most importantly, in all things charity. Even if we disagree on essentials, we can learn to be kind, and tolerant of each other. Of course, this is the world in an ideal state. But the framework that Meldenius provides puts us on the right track in how we should probably think about essentials and non-essentials to our faith.

Whether its holiday foods, or our approach to the most serious things in life, our approach tends to be the same. We want to create boundaries and rules that keep us in a comfortable state. There is nothing inherently wrong with this. Unless, like Jesus said, we start to substitute safety in traditions for the risk of fully following God. We can often think that traditions empower us, but in many cases, they actually limit us. Many people work really hard to do the “right thing.” And end up, even with the best intentions, creating traditions that get us .1 degree off course. Over a long enough period of time, these traditions can become detached from truth enough that they hurt us instead of help us. So we must - like Bereans - always examine rules, interpretations and traditions against objective truth. As well as remind ourselves that traditions keep us comfortable, and being comfortable should not be our goal.

It is important that we analyze why and how traditions happen. There are over 45,000 Christian denominations in the world - read: faith traditions. (Source) Within these denominations there are innumerable factions and perspectives. Which means our traditions can almost be unlimited.

There is only one truth. But at the same time, there are as many interpretations of truth as there are people on the planet. Spread that out through 2000+ years of Christian history and the perspectives easily become uncountable. That’s why when we navigate all these various traditions and interpretations, we can’t be Biblically illiterate. All truth claims must be held up against an objective truth. The problem many people have is that the traditions and truth claims we experience are so effectively presented that we take them at face value. When we do that, we aren’t just ignorant. We harm ourselves by applying falsehoods to our lives and repeating them to our children. We don’t just become followers of man-made ideas disguised as commands of God, we become leaders who teach these things to others. In the Matthew 15 account of the same story from Mark 7, Jesus says this to His disciples about what they should do with Pharisees. “so ignore them. They are blind guides leading the blind, and if one blind person guides another, they will both fall into a ditch.” (Matthew 15:14, NLT). This should be a concerning passage to us. When a person is convinced that their traditions are also truth, God leaves them alone to fall into a ditch, along with everyone that they are leading. That’s one of the reasons why we can say “in all things charity.” Because Jesus himself told us to leave the blind people alone and let him worry about them falling into a ditch. It’s ultimately not our responsibility to correct the bad theology and doctrine around us. It is our responsibility to correct ours and make sure we are not a blind guide for blind people.

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I’ve mentioned (more than a few times) that according to recent studies, only 4% of Christians have a Biblical worldview. I recently learned that I was not communicating that correctly. The good news is, I recently discovered that’s not true. Only 4% of Americans have a Biblical worldview. The bad news is, Christians aren’t doing that much better. Only 6% of Christians have a Biblical worldview. Unfortunately, only 12% of people who consider themselves “theologically defined born-again Christians” have a Biblical worldview. (Source)

What’s a “theologically defined born-again Christian?” A person who:

1. Have a personal belief in Salvation

   They believe they will go to heaven after they die because they have confessed their sins and accepted Jesus as their personal savior.

2. Have a high view of Scripture

   They generally accept biblical teachings on sin, grace and salvation as authoritative guides for their lives.

There are a lot of implications here. But for today, let’s say that 88-96% of us most likely interpret faith through the lens of traditions and interpretations that have been handed down to us. Not truth itself, but interpretations of truth. There’s a story I’ve heard my dad tell my whole life. There was a man whose wife would always cut the ends of the ham whenever she made ham. Now, I don’t really eat ham, but I do eat brisket. Burnt ends are some of the best tasting brisket you can eat. So, I imagine the ends of the ham are like the burnt ends of a brisket. I can imagine how it would feel to have your spouse get rid of the most delicious parts of the meal. This man asked his wife one day why she cut the ends off the ham. She said, “because my mother did.” He went to her mother, she had the same answer, “because my mother did.” He went to her grandmother, same answer. Finally, he gets to the great grandmother. She says to him, “because I never had a pan big enough for the ham to fit into.”

Not all of our traditions work this way. However, most do. They are convenient things that happened in a certain specific situation, that then became rules we have to follow. Why do we eat Thanksgiving foods on Thanksgiving? It’s definitely not because they taste good. We eat Thanksgiving food on Thanksgiving because when Abraham Lincoln made Thanksgiving a national holiday in 1863, it was the closest thing they had to what the Pilgrims and Wampanoag tribe ate at the harvest feast in Plymouth in 1621. I would hope, just like other progress we’ve made over the past 400 years, we could progress in our approach to Thanksgiving foods. If we can discover electricity, invent the internal combustion engine, the printing press, airplanes and the internet, we should - in my opinion - progress in our culinary tastes as well. Because Thanksgiving food is the worst type of food.

You may read these words and say: “that makes sense.” But the truth is, we are all Pharisees - slaves to tradition - in some way. People go to churches every weekend across America, observe the pastor of the church and say things like: “the pastor should know everyone in the church by name.” “The pastor shouldn’t preach on that subject.” “The church should only sing hymns.” “The only proper way to pray is to pray ‘in Jesus’ name.” “A church shouldn’t use instruments or sound systems.” “ A church shouldn’t be more than 100 people.” “A church should meet in a house, not a big building.” “A church should only sing Psalms, because those are the only ‘worship songs’ in the BIble.” “Christians should observe all of the Jewish feasts because that’s what the Jews did in the Old Testament.” All of these things are real things I can remember people saying. There are so many more traditions, these are just some of the ideas I can name off the top of my head.

I grew up in the Charismatic side of Christianity. In my opinion, Charismatics are one step below “snake handlers” in the Christian-weirdness-hierarchy. One of the things I heard in children’s church growing up was that the reason we prayed in tongues was for two primary reasons.

First, when you pray in tongues, you’re closer to God than everybody else, you have the secret knowledge and ability that no one else has.

Second, when you pray in tongues, the devil can’t “steal” your prayers. What does that mean? Well, in my mind, I thought prayer worked like a pneumatic tube at the bank. There were two tubes. One was regular prayer, the other was when you prayed in your “heavenly language.” If you prayed a regular prayer, your prayer might not get to God. If you prayed in tongues, it was like an indestructible prayer tube that the devil couldn’t prevent from getting to God. As if my prayers when I spoke in tongues were given priority access directly to the VIP throne room in heaven and sealed in a golden envelope.

Both of these ideas are Charismatic traditions that many people heard growing up that are also nowhere in Scripture. Charismatic theology does some gymnastics to assert these points, but there is no concrete Biblical backing to this tradition.

Some of you got nervous I was talking about glossolalia. Some of you got excited. Some of you are still mad that I insulted your favorite food - Thanksgiving food. Well, that’s actually impossible, because no one likes that. Traditions work a lot like flavors. There’s nothing inherently wrong with having a flavor that you like. There is something wrong with saying “everything has to be my flavor, because my flavor is also God’s flavor.” The danger of traditions is that traditions often become more desirable than what’s written in Scripture. To become a Pharisee, all we need to do is want our flavor more than we want the truth written in God’s word.

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Recently, I saw these comments on a video from my podcast. I’m convinced the average Christian has some of the worst thinking on money, prosperity and what Scripture actually teaches about it.

I understand why this exists. So many people have taught success and prosperity poorly in the church. There are two extremes, and both of these camps teach wrong.

This is why I’m spending as much time as I can now writing the Vow of Prosperity.

If you haven’t read through what I’ve written so far, start at the beginning of those posts and take the journey. Eventually, I believe this content will become my next, next book.

the next book

I haven’t written much here over the last 6 weeks. That’s because I’ve been completing my first draft of my next book. This is a book I planned to write one day, but it was not on my radar. Until my agent, Rory Green at Alive Literary reached out to me and asked if I’d ever thought about working with agents and publishers.

I said no, and that I wasn’t interested for a bunch of reasons. Then he asked to do a call. I said no again. Then I thought about it, we did a few calls, and now I have an agent. This was in June of 2025.

Usually, an author with an agent has an outline, sells the outline to a publisher and then writes the book. I’m not against doing that, however, I went ahead and wrote the book. I took some focused time from January to now to get it to where I think it needs to be. Now that my first draft is complete, we’ll write a proposal, take it to some publishers and see what happens.

The Way to Live was not written as a book. It was a series of teachings I did on how to follow Jesus incorporating Stoic philosophy. It’s really a foundational book for anyone trying to get a 30,000 foot view of the practicalities of the Old Testament, New Testament and everything in between. When my dad heard my ideas, he convinced me to transform them into a book. Of course, I like my book. However, I didn’t formulate it as a book. I’m excited about this new book, because this is the book I would write if I set out to write a book. Hopefully we’ll have more details on that soon.

The book will probably release in 2027.

what’s now

Why do I tell you all of this? Because I’m now going to be working on completing the Vow of Prosperity as I imagine it.

I don’t know if it will actually be my next next book, but you’re going to see what I write long before the world does. I’m going to be spending the next few weeks and months walking through the history of prosperity in the Church, the Prosperity Gospel, how the Bible actually presents the Church, and Christianity as slavery. Wonder how it all ties together? You’ll see.

New VOP post comes this week.

Reality contains tensions that can’t always be simply resolved or even understood. The same is true in the quantum world. The way to “understand” quantum physics is not through observation, but through the language of math. However, the math behind quantum physics is incredibly complicated and hard to understand. And often says things that are counterintuitive. For instance, in our daily lives, solid objects can’t pass through each other. They are solid after all. However, in quantum physics, they can. Imagine learning your whole life that up is up and down is down, but then observing that what you think is up is actually left, and what you think is down is actually up. How does this work? There are three dimensions that make up objects. Length, width and height. All three of these dimensions go certain directions. A one-dimensional object is a line. It can only go one direction, forward or backward. That motion makes a line. If we add a dimension to a line, we get a square. The shape can now move forward and backward and left and right. That motion makes a square. If we add another dimension, we create a three-dimensional object called a cube. That shape can move forward, backward, left, right, up and down. Those are the three dimensions that we understand.

What if we added another dimension? Is that possible? The math says that it is. This forms a shape called a tesseract. It moves in an additional direction within a fourth dimension. We can’t describe this direction, or say what the direction is, but the math says it’s there. This dimension is inaccessible to our senses but has been rigorously described by math. A tesseract is to a cube what a cube is to a square. It has a name, a mathematical definition, size, and measurements, but we also can’t understand or imagine the shape of one. It doesn’t exist in the physical world as we know it, but it does exist in mathematics. We can’t see this fourth dimension, but we can describe it. If that wasn’t enough to bend our minds, we can’t visualize a tesseract. We can represent it through a 3d projection. But that visualization is limited. If you held up a cube to a light source it would cast a 2d shadow. A 3d rendering of a tesseract is a shadow of the 4d object. Quantum physics shows us that there is much more than what we know. In fact, there is more than we can understand.

What do quantum physics and tesseracts have to do with the meaning of life? To be great philosophers requires us to embrace a lack of direct experience. It also requires us to embrace a great experiment called life. Our knowledge and experience will always be limited by our humanity. Math can describe an object that exists that we can’t perceive. Truth also describes for us a reality that exists that we often can’t perceive. It is hard for us to perceive a world where free will and determinism are both true. Where God has a plan and we also have responsibility. These are two seemingly opposing ideas that we are being asked to hold in our minds at the same time. The idea of both things existing at the same time can feel the same to our brains as the existence of a tesseract. But the truth and the math both agree that it’s possible. Similarly, think about this duality: truth is objective and application of truth is subjective.

Truth – like the laws of physics – isn’t something we created. It exists independently of us. We can know the truth, but we can’t change it, only interpret it. Our interpretations of truth are subjective. Our interpretations of truth are our theories about life. The theories we have about life determine the decisions that we make. The decisions that we make have consequences, also known as fruit. Fruit is what happens when our subjective interpretations of truth (theories) collide with reality (truth). This is experimentation. In physics, theory and experimentation meet to produce results. In life, our theories and experimentation meet to produce consequences.

Theory is tested by reality and belief is tested by fruit. Like a tesseract we can only perceive through math, the meaning of our life is first held in our beliefs. No one can see or percieve it, but we can. The way we reveal the meaning of our life is through experimentation. We must embrace the uncertainty of experimentation with truth to see if we can produce the right kind of outcomes in our life. This will always feel uncomfortable. Like trying to imagine the shape of a tesseract or the movement of the fourth dimension. Yet it is necessary for us to discover whether our beliefs align with truth. Truth is perfect, our application is not. When we are willing to embrace experimentation, we are also willing to allow fruit to correct our beliefs. When we see fruit in our own life, our confidence is strengthened that we are headed in the right direction. When we see the fruit of another person’s life or philosophy we might disagree with, we are forced to reconsider our own philosophy. When we see a lack of fruit in our life, we must be willing to abandon theories that don’t align with truth. Living a meaningful life isn’t about getting everything right the first time. It is more about making sure that when we don’t get it right, we pay close enough attention to change our theories and try again.

Results aren’t just how mathematical theories work, this is how life works. Each of us has theories about life. Your theories about life can also be called your philosophy. The life we live is the experiment that determines whether our philosophy has good results. Our philosophy is our criteria for making decisions. Our decisions have consequences. The consequences of our decisions are the evidence that our philosophy is good or bad, effective or ineffective. There are theories, traditions, beliefs and even dogma that we hold to as truth. What determines whether or not these things are true? What determines the soundness of a theory in physics? Whether or not reality aligns with the theory or breaks the theory. The same kind of thing determines the truth of our beliefs. If our experience with the theory leads to a positive outcome, or our theory is broken by the reality of life. How could a theory or philosophy we have be broken by life? Jesus calls the product of our decisions fruit:

¹⁵ “Beware of false prophets who come disguised as harmless sheep but are really vicious wolves. ¹⁶ You can identify them by their fruit, that is, by the way they act. Can you pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? ¹⁷ A good tree produces good fruit, and a bad tree produces bad fruit. ¹⁸ A good tree can’t produce bad fruit, and a bad tree can’t produce good fruit. ¹⁹ So every tree that does not produce good fruit is chopped down and thrown into the fire. ²⁰ Yes, just as you can identify a tree by its fruit, so you can identify people by their actions. (Matthew 7:15-20, NLT)

When Jesus is using the term false prophet, there is both a religious and practical definition. The religious definition is someone who teaches false doctrines in the name of God. Practically, a false prophet was someone who taught lies as if they were truth. Messianic claims were relatively common in the ancient world, so were cult leaders and all kinds of political figures. Many people will rightly use these verses to assess the fruit of another person’s belief system. That’s good, but it’s also doesn’t solve our real problem. The problem is not the false beliefs “out there” it’s the ones “in here.” Our lack of good outcomes in our own life is a result of the things we do – on-purpose or accidentally - that lead to bad outcomes. This is a product of our own false beliefs.

This reminds me of the main character Ricky Bobby in the movie Talladega Nights starting Will Ferrell. Early in the movie, his absentee father shows up and gives him one piece of advice: “If you ain’t first, you’re last.” He becomes a successful racecar driver but eventually loses everything after he crashes during a race with his rival. When he hits rock bottom, he reconnects with his father and says that statement guided his life. His dad says: “I was high when I said that, that doesn’t make any sense at all. You can be second, third, fourth…even fifth.” Ricky then says “what are you talking about?! I lived my whole life based on that, now what am I supposed to do?”

The danger of false prophecy is when we live our lives based on theories that someone told us, or we created for ourselves that lead to our downfall. A false belief may have come from someone else, but it was our choice to believe it and live our lives according to it. The fruit we have – or don’t have – in our life is a direct reflection of what we believe and therefore do.

This is why fruit matters more than opinion, argument, debates or traditions. In physics, its one thing to have a theory, its another thing to demonstrate the theory in the real world and have the evidence support your theory. In life its one thing to have a theory, its another thing to have fruit. It’s easy to argue theory, we can’t argue with fruit. Fruit is the visible and sustained results of a person’s beliefs. A person who has never been married before may have many good theories on marriage. A person who has been happily married for fifty years has good fruit in their marriage. The only effective way to measure whether what we believe is true – and leads to a good life, is by the results of decisions made according to those beliefs over a period of time. Jesus said thousands of years – lifetimes – ago, that we will know what works by the fruit of it. One of the problems that we have is that we only get one life, and it takes a lifetime to bear some fruit. By the time the fruit shows up, sometimes it can feel like its too late to go back and start over. We all have theories, and we know fruit takes time to develop. So how can we increase our chances of having fruit?

Over the long arc of history, truth has always been true and lies have always been lies. Sometimes it takes more time than we think. But lies are always eventually revealed as lies. And true things have always been true. Another way of saying something is true is if it produces fruit. Truth ultimately always leads to good outcomes. False prophets can fake a lot of things. They can be skilled and eloquent salesmen. They can be charismatic and likeable. They can even manufacture testimonials that show their “fruit.” Over a long enough period of time, all these smoke and mirrors can and will fade away. What will be left? The outcome of that individual’s choices. A person may say they value truth, but if they make decisions according to lies, they won’t have fruit.

Some people are just good at theory and equally bad at transformation. They are like the fat person at the gym with all the information on how to work out, criticizing the workouts of people who are in better shape than them. People do not respect this person at a primal level for one reason: Their theories do not lead to transformation. The first thing we must do is take advice, feedback and direction from people who have the kind of results we would like to have. If they have fruit, we should also be able to observe whether or not they have fruit in every area of their life. For instance, a person may have “good” fruit financially and be wealthy. However, if the philosophy used to gain their wealth was a “good” one, it would also lead to good fruit elsewhere. There are quite a few people who have plenty of financial fruit that also have no fulfillment, close relationships, or sometimes even family around them. They have sacrificed those things in pursuit of money.

This could create a problem. How can we ever know someone well enough to really know if they have fruit? This comes back to what we believe about truth. If we believe truth has always been true, and there have always been people who have lived according to it. Then we gain an advantage. We can see stories throughout history of people who have applied truth to their life and the fruit they have produced. We can investigate the past and see the outcome of a person’s beliefs and decisions. Whether that’s going all the way back to ancient history, or even our own family history. A farmer knows that if he plants an apple seed, he’ll grow an apple tree. He knows this because he isn’t the first farmer to plant a seed. All fruit works this way. Theories about life are like seeds. There are certain theories about life that have been consistently tested throughout history. These theories have also consistently produced the same kind of fruit. If we want that kind of fruit, we can do what those before us did with those theories. There is always room for experimentation with theories of our own. This is another duality.

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History tells us not to reinvent the wheel. That doesn’t mean that no one has ever tried. The reason history tells us not to reinvent the wheel is because when something works and has always worked, it will probably keep working. I’m sure many people have tried to invent a square wheel, and they think they are the first people to try. This isn’t necessarily true. People who try to invent a square wheel are common, and therefore not usually worth remembering. The trash heap of history is littered with foolish ideas, theories and perspectives that only lead to failure. Experimentation, innovation and even invention are always necessary. Failure is a prerequisite for experimentation. Sometimes we will get it wrong. There are times where we will have theories and ideas about life that don’t produce fruit. There is nothing wrong with that phenomenon. In fact, it’s necessary.

Imagine driving a car with square wheels. Every time the wheel turned over, it would rise and drop. The bicycle would not have enough power to move you forward quickly. You would violently bounce. The engine would be working overtime to basically lift the car up each wheel corner instead of rolling forward. In addition, things like your suspension, axles and frame would take repeated shocks and fail relatively quickly. There are not very many people who would even try this experiment. What would be the reason to try? A person can learn a lot of great lessons from experimenting with wheel shapes.

Observing the difference between a car with square wheels and circular wheels can show us how good of a solution a circular wheel is. Often, the right way of doing something is proven by comparison. Observing this comparison also teaches us why and how the principles of motion work in a much more tangible way. By trying a square wheel, we can easily see what makes a circular wheel better. Experimentation and failure are necessary.

The willingness to experiment means that we want to go beyond what we know and explore our beliefs. Failure exposes us to where we have false beliefs that do not produce fruit. Failure isn’t a problem unless we don’t learn from it. Designing and testing a square wheel may waste some time, but lessons can still be learned. True failure is when a person decides to use a square wheel in their everyday life to “prove” that they have a better way. We should test our theories, but then be willing to abandon them if they do not produce good outcomes. We should also not attach our ego to our theories so deeply that we are not willing to abandon them when a better way reveals itself.

One of the “drawbacks” of this writing style is that I can spend a lot of time writing about something that doesn’t connect with the big picture of a book. That doesn’t make it a rabbit trail. Although, maybe it does and I just don’t want to admit that to myself. I think it’s more like an additional dot that shows up in the connections between the dots. I don’t consider this an unimportant part of the process. It’s important to me to see connections and describe them as I’m writing. However, the editing process is also important to prevent me from becoming too abstract or impractical to people who will read what I write.

I have spent the past few weeks writing a few chapters that I’m not sure are going to make the book. I’m in a really practical section of the book and they might be too conceptual. This writing may not make the book, but I think they’re a worthy exploration. Let’s take a break from talking about money and talk about quantum physics.

Living a meaningful life requires an awareness, understanding and mastery of tension. Life is filled with contradictions, dualities and paradoxes. Take intentions vs. outcomes. A person can intend to do good, but the outcome of their intentions can be evil. We believe that God has a plan for our life, its his plan, not our plan. We also believe in the responsibility and freedom that we have to make choices. Both seem to be true at the same time. We must learn to have faith in God, but not allow that faith to prevent us from working diligently. We are individuals who need to learn how to think and act for ourselves. Yet at the same time, our lives cannot be fully meaningful outside of being meaningful to others. We shouldn’t be people-pleasers. But we also should worry about pleasing key people in our lives, like spouses, children, clients and bosses. Some things require immediate action, but some require patience. We must plan and prepare, but we must also learn to adjust our plans when necessary. We need to develop self-confidence, but we also must be open to correction. Some things in our lives need to be stable, and some things need to always be changing.

There are times where life seems ordered, structured and planned. There are also times where life seems chaotic, random and out of control. Has the outcome of our life already been predetermined, or do we have free will? Is it one, the other, or both?

As long as physics has been studied, physicists have been trying to understand the universe. A simple question they ask is: “is the universe chaotic, or is it ordered?” Initially when people study physics, they study everyday objects. They study balls rolling down hills, waves in the ocean, and physical objects interacting with each other. The laws of physics work everywhere we can see. At the scale of life experience, physics appears predictable. The apparent structure and order of the universe is what allows life to exist. However, when scientists look beyond the atomic level, things get less predictable. A problem arises once we enter the quantum world. The word “quantum” means the smallest possible amount of something. Particles can appear and disappear seemingly at random, and the math can only tell what is likely to happen, not what will happen. Quantum physics is one of the hardest things for human beings to understand. Physics at a quantum level is counterintuitive and unpredictable. There is no way to visualize what is happening.

A physicist often lives in the world of paradoxes. As does a philosopher. We often find ourselves stuck in a tension between two opposites that both seem to be true. One of the reasons we can often feel this tension is because we think that we are presented with a binary choice. Like a light switch in a dark room, we can only have maximum brightness or no light. The more we approach life as binary, the more tension we will feel between the “on” and “off.” What if we didn’t approach this tension this way? When a person wants greater control over the amount of light in a room, they install a dimmer switch. That way the light isn’t completely off, nor is it full brightness. Life most often isn’t “either/or” its “both/and.”

Life is not a series of binary choices. It is a spectrum of infinite possibility. When we treat our life like its binary, we limit our choices. And if we limit our choices, we limit our destiny. The challenge of navigating duality is choosing to embrace life as a reality to experience, not a problem to solve. Every situation that we will experience is unique and calls for a completely different response. Understanding this is simple but applying it is difficult. Knowing how to respond to the right person, in the right measure, at the right moment, for the right reason and in the right way is the challenge of a lifetime. To do this consistently is true mastery.

Life is not rocket science. It’s more like quantum physics. Rocket science is about finding the solution. Physics is about exploring the possibilities. Approaching life as a reality to experience is about understanding this duality, and making the best choice you can, for the situation you are in, with the information that you have.

The world of physics is both math and application. There are theories, like Einstein’s theory of relativity that are put together on chalkboards. Physicists use math to describe how they think the universe works. Einstein’s theory was developed using equations and reasoning long before it could be tested fully. After developing theories, scientists design experiments to see whether the universe works the way the math predicts. If experiments match the theories, then the theory helps us understand some of the inner workings of the universe. Experiencing the reality of life means that we see life as a great experiment. We can think things through in our head, we can see these dualities and think about them however we want to. We can ignore them, judge them as binary choices, or see ourselves as falling in a range between them. We also don’t have to think about them at all. We will then make decisions based on how we think (or not). Our thinking is like a theory, and our decisions are like experiments. Theories lead to experiments. Thoughts lead to decisions. Decisions and experiments both have outcomes. Experiments lead to results. Decisions lead to consequences.

We all have traditions. Traditions are unavoidable, and in many cases they are good things. We have cultural traditions, family traditions, national traditions, holiday traditions and more. Is our goal to completely abandon tradition? That is probably an impossible proposition. I think our goal should be to clearly delineate the difference between tradition and truth. Why? Scripture + your interpretation = your traditions. Traditions are not inherently bad things. But when we hand traditions down as if they are truth, we create problems for those that come after us. It seems as though traditions are a part of how we make sense of the world and create safety and security within our lives and families. We all have beliefs and actions that have been handed down to us that we also hand down.

Interpretations are how we make sense of truth. And interpretations combined with truth in some way seem to create traditions. We all have interpretations. It’s how the human mind works. There’s nothing wrong with having interpretations. There’s nothing wrong with having traditions. Traditions are where we tend to get rules from. Proverbs 29:18 gives us this perspective that when we don’t follow rules, we run wild. But when we follow God’s law, we live a joyful life. Most of the traditions and rules that we create come out of our intention to live a good life. However, there is something wrong with doing what Pharisees do with traditions. Pharisees make their interpretation of truth more important than the actual truth.

The Pharisees were fond of using this term: “the traditions of the elders” when telling people what they were required to do. This sounds similar to the Catholic idea that we are saved not just by grace and faith. They believe that our salvation requires the following of “sacred tradition” that has been handed down through the centuries by church leaders. That’s why in the Protestant church there are“ordinances” and in the Catholic church there are “sacraments.” There are seven sacraments in the Catholic church; baptism, confirmation, the Eucharist (comunion), reconciliation (confession and penance), anointing of the sick, holy orders (ordaining priests, etc to serve the church) and marriage. Each of these sacraments have different requirements for different reasons. Baptism is something required by Catholicism for salvation of all Catholics. It’s one of the reasons why Catholics practice infant baptism. This tradition mostly comes from the interpretation of Church fathers like Origen and Augustine. Protestants believe that baptism is not required for salvation, and should be chosen once a person is old enough to make the decision. The Protestant tradition of baptism is different than the Catholic tradition of baptism. Catholics believe that if you are not baptized as a “sacrament” you are not saved. Protestants believe that baptism is important, but salvation is grace and faith alone. This thought may be an oversimplification for some Catholics who are reading this. Theologians have debated this for centuries and that’s not the topic of this book, but it is worth mentioning. Because where there is not Biblical clarity, interpretations are created. To paraphrase Jesus in his discussions with the Pharisees, He is trying to tell them - and us: “Don’t get so focused on your own traditions and rules that you miss what God actually wants.” Does God want infants baptized or people baptized when they are adults? Is that His focus or ours? God wants everyone to be saved and reunited with Him. I’m not sure how much he cares about our human traditions and interpretations. If we’re not careful, we can think that following traditions and rules is God’s desired outcome. Traditions, interpretations and rules are not bad things, but they can be dangerous. Because if we get too focused on them, they prevent God from doing what He actually wants to do in our lives.

I have a theory that no one actually likes Thanksgiving food. There’s a reason we only eat it one day a year, and that’s because it’s awful, and it’s a tradition. If we actually enjoyed things like stuffing, green bean casserole and cranberry “sauce” we’d probably eat it more often. I say “sauce” in quotes, because the majority of us eat congealed jelly from a can that we cut into disks and call it “cranberry sauce.” Think about the average American household on thanksgiving. It’s a bunch of people who don’t want to be together, eating food they don’t want to eat. Why do we do this? Because we have to. It’s called tradition. I have a personal definition for tradition: peer pressure from dead people.

Life’s been lifin’. Podcast is going amazing. I’m taking some of this content and Nick and I are talking about it there. Make sure that you’re subscribed on your preferred platform.

I’ve got a literary agent for the first time in my life. I’ll have to tell that story sometime. But I’ve been spending most of this year writing a new book (not the Vow of Prosperity…yet). Hopefully it’ll be out by 2026. Along with the twins we’re having in May. Did I say life was lifin’?

I’ve still also got so much to write about on the Vow of Prosperity. If you’re new and reading this, welcome! I’d encourage you to start at the beginning of the VOP section on the site to get caught up.

“When people do not accept divine guidance, they run wild. But whoever obeys the law is joyful.” (Proverbs 29:18)

The truth is, we’re all trying to navigate the love of money. Especially if we want to do life God’s way. I believe that we have the best of intentions. Like Proverbs 29, we are trying to do our best to not run wild and accept God’s “law” in our lives. The majority of Christians want to do what God says. So, what’s the problem? Ask yourself this question: “how many of the rules you follow are actually written in Scripture, and where are they written?” This can be a dangerous question. Like me, you’ll probably see how much of what you do is based on what other people have said that Scripture says. Many of us have created rules for life that are not based on truth, they are based on another person’s interpretation of truth. We go to church, we hear the Pastor tell us what to do, we go home and do it. However, there’s a step we miss. A step that the Bereans didn’t miss. We don’t verify the “truth” we are being handed, and carelessly do what someone told us to do because they happen to be some kind of authority figure.

Let’s go back to Jesus and his discussion with the Pharisees in Mark 7.

“8 For you ignore God’s law and substitute your own tradition.”

9 Then he said, “You skillfully sidestep God’s law in order to hold on to your own tradition.

13 And so you cancel the word of God in order to hand down your own tradition. And this is only one example among many others.” (Mark 7:8-9,13 ESV)

The Pharisees are the bad guys of the New Testament. Believe it or not, like most things, they started out with good intentions. Their intention was to please God by following all of the laws written in Scripture. Then, they made a mistake. Their mistake was in believing that their interpretation of Scripture was the only true interpretation. In their minds, they were smarter, wiser, and followed God more intentionally than everyone. This entitled them to require everyone to interpret Scripture their way. The truth is, Pharisees have always been around. You can see them in every church tradition and denomination that exists.

Pursuing deeper knowledge is an incredible thing. There are way more benefits to having knowledge than not having it. One of the problems with pursuing knowledge however is what Paul says in 1 Corinthians 8:1 (NLT): “while knowledge makes us feel important, it is love that strengthens the church.” Other translations say that it is knowledge that “puffs up” but love that “builds up.” All of our search for knowledge and truth must be balanced with a desire to use our knowledge in service to others. That’s where Pharisees - ancient and modern - tend to make their mistakes. There’s nothing wrong with seeking knowledge. The problem arises when we begin to think that our knowledge is now something that needs to be imposed on others. Pharisees weaponize their knowledge. Instead of using what they know to encourage, inspire and uplift others, they use it to criticize, judge and damage others.

Why was Jesus so hard on the Pharisees in Mark 7 and throughout his life on earth? The Pharisees spent most of their time telling people about all the traditions(rules) they needed to observe that weren’t written in Scripture. In Mark 7, the word tradition is παράδοσις (parádosis) in Greek. It means a set of beliefs and actions delivered or communicated to another person. The problem Jesus seemed to have with the Pharisees is that they were handing down their own beliefs and actions, not the truth behind those beliefs and actions. In some cases, the difference between truth and traditions can be slight. So slight that for many people, they don’t think it matters.

Think about life in the context of a journey. If we take a road trip from Dallas - where I live - to LA, that’s roughly 1200 miles. For the sake of this example, let’s say that the journey is a straight line. If I start the journey, and deviate one degree off course, by the end of 1200 miles I would be 21 miles off target. One degree doesn’t seem like a lot. After one mile, it’s only about 92 feet. That’s noticeable, but easily fixable. What about in aviation? If we were taking a plane flight from NYC to Tokyo, that’s a journey of around 6700 miles. If we were one degree off course, after a mile, we’d be 92 feet off course. After 1200 miles, we’d be 21 miles (113,800 feet) off course. At the conclusion of our 6700 mile journey, we’d be over 118 miles (620,900 feet) off course, and depending on which direction, we might end up in the ocean instead of Japan. In 1969, Apollo 11 landed on the moon. The journey between the earth and the moon is a distance of over 238,900 miles. Over that distance, if the Apollo astronauts were one degree off course, they would have missed the moon by over 4000 miles (22 million feet). The moon itself is only 2,159 miles in diameter. The space between the astronauts and the moon would have been almost twice the size of the moon itself. In fact, if Apollo 11 was just .1 degrees off course, they still would have missed the moon by over 400 miles (2 million+ feet). What if you were .1 degrees off on your road trip to LA or your flight to Tokyo? You’d only be around 2 miles (10,000 feet) off course driving from Dallas to LA. You’d be 12 miles (62,000 feet) off course on your flight from NYC to Tokyo.

This phenomenon took place on a 1979 plane flight from New Zealand to Antartica. In the 1970’s, airlines began marketing guided low-lying flights over Antarctica as unique sightseeing experiences. These trips were popular and guided by famous explorers like Sir Edmund Hilary and Peter Mulgrew.

Before the flight, the crew corrected what they thought was an error in the flight coordinates, changing the flight’s course by two degrees. As they approached Antartica, the pilots descended to an altitude of 2,000 feet and switched to autopilot. Because of their two degree change, the plane was 28 miles to the east of where the pilots assumed they were. This difference put them directly in the path of Mount Erebus, an active volcano that rises 12,000 feet above the frozen landscape. Outside of the windows, the clouds blended with the snow-covered volcano and created a whiteout. This deceived the crew into believing that the volcano was the Ross Ice Shelf, an expanse of floating ice. They believed they were flying over flat ground. As they flew closer to the volcano, the slope of the mountain sounded the ground warning alarm. The terrain of the volcano was so steep that it was only a few seconds before the plane crashed into the side of the mountain, killing everyone on board. This terrible tragedy was caused by an error of two degrees.

Growing up, my dad taught me that “wisdom is the ability to make finer distinctions.” The journey of our lives is much more like space travel than a road trip. The distinction between truth and traditions can seem small, but over the journey of our life, even minor mistakes have far reaching consequences.

On a recent podcast episode, Nick and I talked about how we can really learn to know God’s nature and his character. A few years ago, I wrote out a reading plan to help people see God’s nature and character from the beginning to the end of the Bible.

The Bible can be intimidating for a lot of people to start reading. I get a lot of questions on where people should start.

I recommend that you start with this plan, it’s simple and each reading is not going to take a bunch of your day. There is also a practical application of each day. After you read this plan, read the New Testament and start in the book of John. John is a simple gospel that transitions easily into the rest of the NT. It reveals the relational nature of Jesus. And it’s my personal favorite Gospel - it’s the most philosophical.

Feel free to share this with a friend or save this post so you can come back to it.

introduction to the plan

Becoming who God designed you to be starts with a foundational truth: You cannot fully develop yourself until you have discovered God. True self-discovery and the realization of your potential are deeply rooted in understanding the nature and character of God. The Bible is not just a collection of ancient writings; it is the living Word of God, designed to reveal who He is and how He interacts with humanity. As you engage with Scripture, you will encounter the One who created you, loves you, and has a purpose for your life.

Romans 12:2 tells us: “Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect.” In Isaiah 55:9, God tells us “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.”

These two verses illustrate some profound truths:

1. God thinks infinitely better than us.

2. His thinking transforms us into who He created us to be.

3. When you make human thinking, culture and behavior your primary source, you will not become who God created you to be.

When you read the Bible, you learn how God thinks. When you learn how to think like God thinks, you can become who He has created you to be and fulfill His purpose for your life. The primary way God wants to teach us how to think is directly through our engagement with the Bible.

This 31-day Bible reading plan is designed to guide you through key passages of Scripture from the Old Testament to the New Testament. This 30,000 foot view will reveal the character of God and His plan for you. Each day, you will explore a theme that highlights an aspect of God’s nature and how it impacts your life. By the end of these 31 days, you will have a clearer understanding of who God is, how He thinks, and how you can align your life with His will to fulfill your God-given potential. This plan will give you a foundation to know God, so you can learn to know yourself and know how to live a meaningful life.

Each day also includes the Proverb of the day. There are 31 chapters in Proverbs, and one of the best ways to establish a rhythm of daily Bible reading is by reading one Proverb per day.

This plan is an invitation to discover God and let Him transform your thinking, so you can become who He destined you to be. As you walk through these passages, don’t just read them. Apply them to your life, and allow God to shape your thinking, attitudes and actions. Once God changes you, you’ll begin to change the world.

the plan

Day 1: Creation

Passages: Genesis 1-3, Proverbs 1

Theme: God as Creator and the introduction of sin.

Application: The goodness of God’s creation and how sin - our desire to do things our way - distorts it. How does understanding original sin affect your perspective on the world, yourself and God?

Day 2: God’s People

Passages: Genesis 12, 15, 28:10–15, 32:22–32, Proverbs 2

Theme: God’s covenant with His chosen people.

Application: God calls people into a relationship with Him and keeps His promises. How has God been faithful to you, and how can you trust him more in the future?

Day 3: The Ten Commandments

Passages: Exodus 14, 19-20, Proverbs 3

Theme: God’s law as a reflection of His holiness and justice.

Application: Consider how God’s commandments reveal His desire for righteousness and justice. How can you better align your life with God’s desire for right living?

Day 4: Love-Based Obedience

Passages: Deuteronomy 6-8, 11:13–21, Proverbs 4

Theme: The connection between love for God and obedience.

Application: Meditate on how love for God is what motivates true obedience. What is your motivation for obeying God?

Day 5: Cycles of Disobedience

Passages: Judges 1-2, 3:7-11, Proverbs 5

Theme: The cycle of disobedience and repentance among God’s people.

Application: The human pattern is often cycles of disobedience and repentance. Where do you see this pattern in your own life? What concrete step can you take this week to break that cycle and trust God consistently?

Day 6: God’s People Demand a King

Passages: 1 Samuel 8-9, 10:17-27 Proverbs 6

Theme: Israel’s desire for a king and God’s sovereignty.

Application: The Israelites demanded a human solution and rejected God’s solution. Do you more often trust God’s leadership or seek your own solutions? Is God really the King over every area of your life?

Day 7: Fall of Saul and Rise of David

Passages: 1 Samuel 15-17, Proverbs 7

Theme: The consequences of disobedience and the rise of a leader after God’s own heart.

Application: Consider how God values obedience over outward appearances. Are you a person after God’s own heart?

Day 8: How God’s People Respond to Hardship

Passages: Job 1-2, 38, 42, Proverbs 8

Theme: Trusting God in the midst of suffering.

Application: Reflect on how Job’s story challenges you to trust God even when life is hard. What is your attitude towards God when life gets hard?

Day 9: Grow Your Soul

Passages: Psalm 1, 23, 27, 139, Proverbs 9

Theme: Nurturing your relationship with God.

Application: Meditate on what it means to you that God knows everything about you. Do you treat God as if he really knows you deeply?

Day 10: Suffering and Sin

Passages: Psalm 6, 32, 38, 51, Proverbs 10

Theme: The reality of sin, its consequences and repentance.

Application: Reflect on David’s repentance and God’s mercy. What should your response to your own sin be?

Day 11: Wisdom for Life

Passages: Proverbs 3, 5, 11, 16, 31

Theme: Living wisely according to God’s principles.

Application: How can you apply wisdom to your life daily?

Day 12: Israel’s Sin Against God

Passages: Ezekiel 18, 20:5–26, 26:22-32, Proverbs 12

Theme: The consequences of sin and God’s call to repentance.

Application: Sin separates us from God, but He continually invites us to return. What area of your life do you need to repent of today? Talk to God about it and take one step towards obedience - doing what you know to do.

Day 13: Jesus, The Promised King

Passages: Jeremiah 23:1–6, Isaiah 9:6–7, Isaiah 53, Zechariah 9, Proverbs 13

Theme: The promise of a Savior and the fulfillment in Jesus.

Application: Jesus is the fulfillment of God’s promises. How can you live with greater confidence in that promise this week?

Day 14: The Word Became Flesh

Passages: Matthew 1, Luke 2, John 1:1–18,, Proverbs 14

Theme: Jesus as the embodiment of God’s plan.

Application: When John says the “Word” became flesh, he uses a word “logos” which for people in that time meant “plan of God.” God’s plan didn’t stay abstract — it became a person, Jesus, who lived among us. What does it mean for you to live out God’s plan - follow Jesus - in a real and tangible way today?

Day 15: Signs and Miracles of Authority

Passages: Matthew 8-9, Luke 13:10–17, Proverbs 15

Theme: Jesus’ authority demonstrated through miracles.

Application: Jesus’ miracles reveal His divine authority. Where do you need to trust His authority in your life right now?

Day 16: Jesus Fulfills the Law

Passages: Matthew 5-7, Proverbs 16

Theme: Jesus as the fulfillment of the Law.

Application: Following Jesus means aligning your life with His teachings. What specific teaching of Jesus do you need to put into practice this week? Make it your focus.

Day 17: Born Again

Passages: John 3-4, Proverbs 17

Theme: The new life offered through faith in Jesus.

Application: Being born again gives you a new identity and purpose. How will you live differently today because of this new identity? Identify one area where you need to act like a new creation.

Day 18: Jesus Gave His Life

Passages: John 18-19, Proverbs 18

Theme: The willing sacrifice of Jesus.

Application: Jesus’ sacrifice shows the value He places on you. How can you honor that sacrifice in your daily choices? Commit to one action today that reflects gratitude for His love.

Day 19: Jesus’ Death and Resurrection

Passages: Matthew 27-28, Luke 24, Proverbs 19

Theme: The victory of Jesus over sin and death.

Application: The resurrection means death and sin don’t have the final word. What part of your life feels hopeless or lifeless? How can you invite God’s resurrection power into that part of your life?.

Day 20: The Church Begins

Passages: Acts 1-2, Proverbs 20

Theme: The birth of the church empowered by the Holy Spirit.

Application: The Spirit empowered the early church to live on mission together. How can you partner with God’s mission through His church this week — by serving, giving or building relationships?

Day 21: Jesus is the Final Sacrifice

Passages: Hebrews 4, 7, 9-10, Proverbs 21

Theme: Jesus as the ultimate sacrifice for sin.

Application: Because of Jesus, no more sacrifices are needed — the price has been paid. How should this change the way you handle guilt or striving for approval? Choose one way today to rest in His finished work.

Day 22: Our Sin Exposed

Passages: Romans 1:18-32, 2:17-29, 3:9-20, Proverbs 22

Theme: The reality of sin in humanity.

Application: In both the Old and New Testaments, the Bible makes it clear sin is infectious and destructive in our lives. Humans are not inherently good. How does this perspective shape your thinking on your need for a savior?

Day 23: Grace Comes Through Jesus

Passages: Romans 3:21-31, 4-5, Proverbs 23

Theme: Salvation by grace through faith in Jesus.

Application: In spite of our sin, God gives us a gift called grace. Salvation is not something we earn, its something we receive. How does this affect your approach to your own sin?

Day 24: The War of Sin

Passages: Romans 6-8, Proverbs 24

Theme: The ongoing struggle with sin and the power of the Spirit.

Application: Although grace is a gift, it doesn’t end sin in our lives. How does following Jesus help you in the war against sin?

Day 25: Living Sacrifices

Passages: Romans 12-13, Proverbs 25

Theme: Offering your life as a living sacrifice to God.

Application: Reflect on what it means to live as a sacrifice to God. What does it mean to worship Him daily?

Day 26: New Life in Christ

Passages: Ephesians 1-3, Proverbs 26

Theme: The new identity and purpose found in Christ.

Application: Reflect on the new life Christ gives you. How should your identity in Him shapes your daily interactions and decisions.

Day 27: Life of Faith

Passages: James 1-3, Proverbs 27

Theme: Living out your faith through actions.

Application: Reflect on how faith and works are interconnected. How can you put your faith in God into action?

Day 28: Trusting in Jesus

Passages: 1 Peter 1-3, Proverbs 28

Theme: Trusting Jesus in the face of trials and persecution.

Application: The life of a Christian is not a playground, it’s a battleground. How does following Jesus equip you for life’s battles?

Day 29: The Light of Truth

Passages: 1 John 1-2, Proverbs 29

Theme: Walking in the light of God’s truth.

Application: Walking in God’s light means living with honesty, purity, and integrity. What is one specific step you can take this week to bring more of your life into the light?

Day 30: Love One Another

Passages: 1 John 3-5, Proverbs 30

Theme: The command to love one another as Jesus loves.

Application: How can you love people like Jesus has loved you?

Day 31: Promise of Eternity

Passages: Revelation 19-22, Proverbs 31

Theme: The hope of eternal life with God.

Application: How should the assurance of God’s eternal plan and hope influence your perspective on the world and your own life?

Have you subscribed to the podcast? We’re talking about a lot more than money, and if you like what I write, maybe you’ll like what Nick and I talk about. Episode 5 on truth just dropped yesterday.

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On to today’s thoughts //

¹⁰ For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils. It is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pangs.” (1 Timothy 6:10)

I really like the Greek word for love of money. It is φιλαργυρία (philarguría). A friend of silver. Some of my favorite philosophers growing up - Chamillionaire and Paul Wall - said it best, “my money gets jealous.” You might not think that you love money. But how tight do you hold onto it? How much do you think about it? How much of your focus does money get compared to the other types of wealth you have? For most of us, we spent an inordinate amount of time thinking about money. I believe that’s because we love it so much, but we have a hard time seeing it, or admitting it.

When I was 16, my life savings was $1000. I remember how great it felt logging into my bank account and seeing three zeroes that I had earned and saved for the first time. I loved it. I loved my money, and I loved seeing it in the bank. So, I gave it all away in an offering. Fast forward to age 21. I’m graduating from college, I have saved up $10,000 through my time in school. I loved that too. So the weekend I came home from college, I gave it all in the offering. When I started working, I started giving a third of my income at church. When I got married, my dad - who is also my pastor - knew how much I was giving and told me that I shouldn’t give that much, and it was unwise. I mostly kept doing it anyway. A few years ago, I gave $100,000 over the course of a year for the first time in my life. Every year since, I continue to get closer and closer to giving $200,000 in a year. Why am I telling you this? To brag about how much money I don’t keep? No. I’ve discovered a secret along the way. Giving $100,000+ hurts just as much at 38 as giving $1000 hurt at 16, and as much as giving $10,000 hurt at 21. Every time I am generous, I am both feeling and fighting the love of money within me. Silver and I would be best friends if I let that happen.

Unless we can admit the problem, we have no hope to cure it. The desire for financial wealth is more often than not, a trap. We often don’t realize that we are in that trap. Sometimes I have gone into my savings account to give. I have foregone vacations, or nice things in my life so that I can give. Do I recommend that? No. But it helps prevent me from becoming too close with my money.

Here’s another secret. Most of the people that have the biggest problem with talking about money in a spiritual context are in love with money. They don’t like what I’m writing about because I’m talking about money. And their definition of prosperity is money. They don’t like going to church because the church is going to talk about money at the offering time. Go read a Google review of your local church. The odds are there will be plenty of people saying “all they talk about is money.” Especially if that church is seen as a megachurch. Have you ever decided to buy a car, and you have set your mind on a specific model. In the next few days, you see that car wherever you go? It feels like suddenly, everyone is driving a car. In psychology, this is called the Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon, or the frequency illusion. It is the false impression that something is happening more frequently than it actually is. It’s not that the thing has become more common, it’s just that your brain is paying more attention to it. This phenomenon takes place because of two psychological effects:

1. Selective attention - Whatever you think about, your mind will unconsciously look for when you are not thinking about it.

2. Confirmation bias - Everytime you see what you think about, it reinforces the feeling that it is “everywhere.”

What does this have to do with money and churches? If I have already convinced myself that a church “just wants my money.” I will find all the reasons why that hypothesis is correct everytime I go to a church. Just like If I get a green car, I will see green cars a lot more.

People who are friends of silver always have a hard time when you ask them to not be friends with silver. The problem is not how often the church talks about money. The problem is how often we think about money. And because we think about money so often, all we hear is “the church” talking about money. One thing you’ll see in many people that think like this is that they are rarely generous, if at all. And if they are generous, their generosity has strings attached that allow them to control things with money. So, even when they give money away, they are still friends with it, because they are controlling its use. Remember earlier when we talked about substituting man-made ideas for God’s commands? About ten years ago, I spoke a message on tithing in our church. I feel bad for every 20-something that has to get on stage in a main church service and share. Why? Because many of the “adult” armchair theologians come out of the woodwork to correct your theology almost as soon as the words come out of your mouth. If you’re a person who goes to church and feels the need to address or correct the speaker on what they said, how they said it, or otherwise debate with them about your perspective on what they should have done, let me help you. If they didn’t ask you for your opinion before they preached the message, they definitely aren’t asking for it after they preached it. The motto of the church isn’t “have it your way.” That’s Burger King. If you don’t like the music, change the station. I digress…

So I preached a message on tithing. And a man I had never met, who was significantly older than me approached me in the lobby. He let me know that I was wrong about my stance on tithing and I must not have studied very well for my message. If I was going to preach from the platform in a church service, I should really make sure I know what I’m talking about. This guy must be a lot of fun at parties. I said: “can I ask you a question?” He smiled and said “sure.” I said: “tithing is the Old Testament standard, and you say that’s no longer required, so that must mean that you live by the New Testament standard then?” He looked at me blankly for a second and then said something like: “I’m not sure what you mean?” I said: “Well, in Acts chapter 2 and Acts chapter 4 the Bible says that the people in the church sold their possessions and gave everything to the church so that no one in the church had needs. You must practice that style of generosity.” He said: “I’m going to have to study that a little further,” and walked off. I would be lying if I said I didn’t feel a little smug after that conversation. I don’t tell that story as a “gotcha” to show how much I know. I tell that story because it represents the majority of interactions that I have had with you-don’t-need-to-give Christians. Past, present and future, I will say things from a stage that are worthy of correction. This just wasn’t one of those times.

What’s the goal of any generosity from God’s perspective? To get us to not be friends with money. Some people have taken this to mean we should hate prosperity. That’s what we’ll talk about in this section. First, we need to understand the core problem we have. This core problem is the desire within us to love money. To focus on all the things we want, not the things we actually need. So ask yourself how good of a friend you are to your silver? How tempted are you to love money?