If a mentee is teachable and is willing to listen to the wisdom of another, then a great mentor has the opportunity to make an impact and effect a change in his disciple.  A mentor is not an accountability partner but rather a backstop (for lack of a better analogy).  He can bounce things off the one who has taken him under his wing.   A great mentor exercises discernment and does not provide answers or solutions to the mentee’s -or disciple- but rather answers him with a question.  If given time, the mentee will find the answer to his own questions.  What a mentor does is offer suggestions so that the disciple can think over or mull over or ponder what he has heard from his teacher.  The disciple takes this information and puts it in a form of data that can be handled and broken down then pick and choose what fits or works best with his circumstances.  The mentee is receptive to the truth and in the same vane, the mentor is receptive to the truth.  It is a learning experience for both parties involved in this intimate yet invasive relationship.

At the same time when the mentor make a mistake or gets it wrong, he must acknowledge that a mistake has been made and learn from it as well as learn from the mistakes of others.  He genuinely cares about the other.  He puts priorities and values above comfort.  In doing so, he seeks whom/what God loves above what he is willing to tolerate in the name of love.  He actively and openly grows in following God personally.

So, not only is a mentee teachable but is committed to the process.  He seeks to do the right things and genuinely cares.  He acts in faith.  The mentor is a teacher taking on a pupil. They labor together as they go on this journey of Christianity and delve into this process of becoming.  Becoming a child of God.

Never exchange what is eternal for what is temporal.  Make sure that the priorities reflect what is truly valuable.

John, author of 4 books of the Bible, was one the of the 12 ordinary men to be called by Jesus (Messiah – annointed one).  His words “Come, follow Me” were strong enough for John’s interest to be peaked and to be willing to drop everything and leave his family and work behind.  Jesus’ jingle, “Come, follow me and I will make you fishers of men”, caught the curiosity  of these men.

These 12 ordinary men.  As in the lives of many people thru out biblical history,  God will take a nobody, make them a somebody, so they can bless everybody.  He would also do the opposite as we have seen in the Bible in Esther, Daniel, Acts to name a few. The most recognized scenario that this happened was Pentecost.   Jesus took the men, taught them for 3 years and sent them out into the community.  God calls ordinary people to do extraordinary things.  It was upon these men that the church was built as they evangelized through out the region and country.  These men were more then ordinary.  They were charismatic.  Look at a historical event which happened inside a historical event.  9/11.  Flight 93.  The passengers were called to go above and beyond ordinary and to hamper the goal of the skyjackers to crash the plane into the white house.

John’s gospel account is addressed to the world – there are no parables  in this gospel – and it is a gospel of action, the theme of which is the Deity of God.  Jesus is God.  Jesus is the reason why everything ‘is’.  In this account by John there are no miracles.  Instead they are called signs.  There are 7 signs, 7 discourses and 7 “I am” statements.  The Living God transcends time.  Studying the Word of God is not an academic exercise.  God gives us His Word so that we may believe and follow Him.   WE ARE SINNERS-WE ARE BROKEN-LETS BE REAL.

The grade school long distance runner, high school basketball player, college football player, professional baseball player, and the list goes on…..  What do they all have in common?  They are all athletes who train with intensity for the big day with a will to win.  Their coaches push them and change their diets so they have bodies that operate more efficiently.  These athletes also have a sense of health and wellness as they look for ways to improve their game and performance.

Enter sports massage.  The sports massage industry has grown over the past decade but it has only scratched the surface.  Body/Image Massage Therapy – “Where self-image and success go hand-in-hand”.  Self-image and performance piggy back each other, you cannot have one without the other.  How an athlete sees’ themselves is how they will perform.  How they perform will determine how they see themselves.

Then it may not be an image issue.  It could be the anterior deltoid is not allowing them to extend and elevate the way the muscle is designed to do so when it is called upon for its ROM.  The axiom is “practice makes perfect” but that is wrong.  The saying should be changed to “practice makes permanent.”  If you were taught to do the skill wrong or in a manner that is inefficient then the athlete will always perform the skill wrong.  This is where we as sports massage therapists come in.

Your smile is your logo; your personality is your business card; how you leave others feeling after an experience with you becomes your trademark. (Anon)

To truly know myself, I must know God. Now all of us at some point or another have a tendency to focus on ourselves.

The values and ideals that society and the world aspire to are but dust in the wind. They exist only for a moment and then “poof”! They are gone. Well it seems KANSAS got it right with their song – Dust in the wind “I close my eyes; only for a moment then the moments gone. All my dreams – pass before my eyes a curiosity. Dust in the wind; all they are is dust in the wind.” ……

Now here’s the point. Things may be gone in a moment but the consequences of those moments remain. They are eternal and long lasting. WE have to live with the consequences of the decisions we make.

Here is some good news. Everyone’s sins will be paid for. They will be paid for either by ourselves or by Jesus. And to know Jesus is to know how to live in this fallen world (Proverbs 3: 5 thru 7) – because in the end, the Christ who came once is the same Christ who will come again.

How do we know that God has been at work in our life?  Well, that is a good question!  So lets take a quick look back at how we got to this point.

We all have needs of all kinds.  As I look at my needs of the past, I can see that most of them have been material. Now, I am not a betting man but  I will bet that as you look at yours you would have to say the same thing.  To us, material needs are very important to our way of life and it is because of “the fall of man” that we have them.  While our material needs are met by God, He lets us know they are not everything.  He lets us know that our spiritual needs are more important to be met.  Think about this – “He has already taken care of the BIG stuff so why sweat the small stuff”.   In hindsight I saw that God was there thru it all – the seizures, car accidents, grades that I got in school, etc…  Yes, He had a hand in my life – as my dad would always tell me.  Even now, God still does!

God tests us as His children to develop what you might call “CHRIST DEPENDENCE”.  If we give to him our talents, time, and treasures  we begin to see that our needs become less about ‘me’ and more about what we can do to advance His kingdom.

Then there is the great deceiver, Satan.  He will tempt us beyond his hearts content.  Temptation will always test my dependence on God.  Here is the good thing.  We already know that they come from Satan but they can be overcome.  It is testing and trials that come from God.  Remember?  He knows our needs but He will never give us anything more than we can handle.  These test and trials are to develop that “Christ Dependence”.  Temptations desire is to cause me to deal with and give in to my temptation, in a moment that is detrimental to my personal well-being and primarily my relationship with God.

Dealing with these temptations, this testing and the trials(the 3T’s) make you feel like your  being put through a wringer.  It’s like your the one in the middle of a game between the two rulers of their eternal kingdoms.  Your in the middle of a game called ‘Tug of War’ with God on the right and Satan on the left in a battle of tugging for your soul.  After going through this process of formation, you know that you have come full circle when you make a decision that you know you could not have made.  Rather, it comes from God.  Just because you have a peace about the decision does not mean that you have passed the test.  The process is from us – the outcome is from God!

All of this, begets the question “why does Jesus test our dependence on Him”?  Jesus desires my complete dependence on Him.

The values, ideals, and morals that society and the world aspire to are but dust in the wind. They are here only but a moment then the moment is gone. If these morals and ideals go by the wayside, then so goes society. All of us at some point have a tendency to focus on ourselves. At the core or the heart of the matter, to truly know thyself – one must know God. “Knowing God is the beginning of wisdom.”