Mike Browning

Tag: Spiritual Growth

  • He Came Anyway

    He Came Anyway

    Whatever you’ve straightened up before He arrives, He already knows about.

    There’s a story in the book of Luke about Mary and Martha.

    Martha was serving. Working. Putting on a dinner for Jesus. He was physically in her house and she was trying to take care of Him. Making sure everything was right.

    If we are being honest we’d probably all be doing the same thing. If Jesus were in your house, you’d probably make sure your liquor cabinet was shut and the wrong sort of music wasn’t playing. Then you’d worry about the food. Then whether anything was out of place.

    We forget He already knows about the liquor cabinet. Already knows about the music. Whatever Martha had quietly straightened up before He arrived, He knew about that too. He showed up anyway.

    Her sister Mary was just sitting there listening.

    So Martha went to Jesus and did what any reasonable person would do. She asked Him to tell Mary to get up and help.

    Jesus sided with Mary.

    Not because serving is bad. Not because work is bad. But because Martha had somehow gotten so wrapped up in doing things for Jesus that she’d stopped paying attention to Jesus Himself.

    If you see it once, you start seeing it everywhere.

    Churches where the calendar is full and nobody seems particularly close to God. Businesses where everyone is optimizing the process and nobody’s talking to customers. People who are endlessly productive and quietly miserable.

    The activity becomes a substitute for the thing the activity was supposed to serve.

    It’s an easy trap to fall into because it can feel like progress. And in some cases it is. But sometimes it’s just a socially acceptable way to avoid something harder.

    It’s easier to organize a church dinner than sit quietly with God.

    Easier to volunteer for another project than examine your own heart.

    Easier to do something than receive something.

    That last one is where most people stall out.

    Receiving doesn’t feel like enough. Grace especially. Grace removes your ability to take credit, and most people, if they’re honest, would rather contribute. Would rather earn. Would rather show up with something in hand.

    So they stay busy.

    Martha probably felt like she was doing everything right. She was. By almost any external measure, she was the responsible one.

    Jesus still told her she’d missed the point.

    Worth sitting with longer than most people do.

    P.S. – If you’d like to read through the Bible this year, you can join us at His Word Together.

    No commentary. No telling you what to think. Nothing to buy. Nothing fancy.

    Just steady time in the Word.

    Check it out here.

    PPS- If you’d like to receive these via email when they are available, enter your info below:

    Register to Receive Posts Via Email!

    By submitting, I understand I will receive marketing emails and blog posts from Mike Browning Realty and/or associated companies. Unsubscribe at any time.

  • Don’t Assume God Wouldn’t Use You

    Don’t Assume God Wouldn’t Use You

    He’s used flawed people since the beginning. He has no choice.

    Even among professing Christians, many people’s exposure to the Bible mostly consists of whatever passage their pastor teaches from on Sunday, or from devotionals they read during the week.

    There’s nothing wrong with any of that. But it can leave you with a strange idea of what the Bible is actually like when read straight through.

    You mostly hear the stories where somebody trusted God, did the right thing, and things worked out in the end. It gets in your head that the people in scripture were kind of superheroes of faith. More disciplined. More obedient. More spiritually stable than regular people are.

    At least that’s how it felt to me.

    Then I actually read the whole thing straight through.

    Surprising to say the least. A huge percentage of the Bible is people screwing things up.

    Moses kills a man and runs away.

    David impregnates one of his loyal soldiers’ wives, tries to cover it up, then arranges for the man to die in battle.

    The sons of Eli the priest were corrupt and openly abusing their position.

    The disciples themselves constantly misunderstand Jesus, even while following Him directly.

    And this kind of thing keeps happening over and over.

    At first it’s confusing because you expect the “heroes” of the Bible to act differently. But most of them were not spiritual superheroes. They were regular people. Flawed people.

    In some cases, people who did things most of us have never done and hopefully never will.

    Yet God kept working through them anyway.

    That does not mean their sins were unimportant. Scripture is very clear that actions have consequences. But it also means failure was never automatically the end of the story.

    People sometimes disqualify themselves because of things they’ve done wrong. Or because they assume God only uses unusually gifted, disciplined, impressive people.

    The Bible really doesn’t support that idea very well.

    God uses regular people.

    It’s the only kind He has.

    P.S.- If you’d like to read through the Bible this year, you can join us at His Word Together.

    No commentary.
    No telling you what to think.
    Nothing to buy.
    Nothing fancy.

    Just steady time in the Word.

    Check it out here.

    PPS- If you’d like to receive these in your inbox, enter your info below:

    Register to Receive Posts Via Email!

    By submitting, I understand I will receive marketing emails and blog posts from Mike Browning Realty and/or associated companies. Unsubscribe at any time.

  • You’re Not Going To Break It

    You’re Not Going To Break It

    God’s plan was designed to account for the fact we are human.

    A lot of people are waiting to understand perfectly before they move.

    It may sound wise, but it’s really just fear with religious language wrapped around it.

    We all tend to want certainty. To know exactly what God is doing, exactly what the outcome will be, exactly how things are supposed to unfold before they take a step.

    But if you actually read the Bible, that’s not really how it works.

    Abraham is told to go somewhere without being told where.

    The disciples follow Jesus while constantly misunderstanding Him. Even near the end they still don’t fully grasp what’s happening.

    Peter gets corrected repeatedly.

    Moses loses his temper.

    David wrecks things more than once.

    Solomon is the wisest man who ever lived, but also screwed things up on an order we can’t really fathom.

    Notice a pattern?

    God keeps working through people who do not fully understand what they are doing while they are doing it. And they screw up repeatedly, yet God keeps working through them anyway.

    That does not mean mistakes don’t matter, because they do. Sometimes painfully. Moses still didn’t enter the Promised Land. David still suffered consequences for what he did. Actions matter, and scripture never pretends otherwise.

    But there’s another mistake people make.

    They act like one honest error can somehow derail God’s entire plan for their life.

    As if the outcome ultimately depends on them executing everything flawlessly.

    It doesn’t.

    Romans says all things work together for good for those who love God and are called according to His purpose. Most people apply that only to external suffering, and things that don’t look like our fault.

    But it also applies to our mistakes.

    You are going to misunderstand things sometimes and make decisions that later look immature. You’ll move too slowly in some situations and too quickly in others.

    That’s being human. God has already accounted for it.

    A baby doesn’t learn to walk by studying for years. They just start moving, wobble around a bit, and learn through the movement itself.

    Faith works similarly.

    A lot of people are frozen because they are waiting for a level of certainty that they will never see.

    Meanwhile the people throughout scripture were often moving forward with partial understanding at best.

    The outcome was never resting entirely on them getting everything right. And it is not resting entirely on you either.

    God already knew imperfect people were going to be involved.

    Our mistakes don’t surprise Him.

    P.S.- If you’d like to read through the Bible this year, you can join us at His Word Together.

    No commentary.
    No telling you what to think.
    Nothing to buy.
    Nothing fancy.

    Just steady time in the Word.

    Check it out here.

    PPS- if you’d like these in your inbox simply enter your info below:

    Register to Receive Posts Via Email!

    By submitting, I understand I will receive marketing emails and blog posts from Mike Browning Realty and/or associated companies. Unsubscribe at any time.

  • The Door Is Open — But Will You Walk In?

    The Door Is Open — But Will You Walk In?

    If you don’t get in, it’s because you refused the invitation.

    Jesus said:

    “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children,
    you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” — Matthew 18:3

    That’s not soft language.

    He doesn’t say it would be helpful to be more childlike. He doesn’t say you’ll grow more spiritually if you do. He doesn’t say this is one recommended spiritual posture among many.

    He says unless you change — you will not enter.

    And notice what He doesn’t say.

    He doesn’t say God will refuse you. He doesn’t say you’ll be kept out.

    He says you will not enter.

    Meaning the barrier isn’t at the gate — it’s in the heart.

    It will be your decision.

    Like the older brother in the Prodigal Son account. He was invited into the celebration. The Father wanted him there. The door was open.

    But he would not enter.

    Not couldn’t. Would not.

    Because he wanted the Kingdom on his terms — through merit, performance, and proving himself.

    That’s the tragedy Jesus is pointing to. Not rejection — refusal.

    So the real question becomes:

    What has to change?

    Jesus is not telling us to be childish, naive, or irresponsible.

    Children are not models of wisdom. They are models of dependence.

    A child knows they cannot provide for themselves. They know they are not in control. They know they need the one who loves them. And they are not embarrassed to need Him.

    Adults are.

    Adults spend years constructing a version of themselves that doesn’t need anyone. We build our identities on competence, independence, and control.

    We want to come to God having it all together.

    But the Kingdom is not something we achieve by becoming stronger. It is something we receive by becoming honest.

    A child can receive love because they are not ashamed to need it.

    They don’t apologize for asking. They don’t try to earn it first. They simply trust the Father.

    This is the change Jesus is talking about — the collapse of the part of us that believes we can handle life without God.

    The part that wants to negotiate. The part that wants to understand before obeying. The part that wants to feel in control before moving.

    To become like a child is not to become simple-minded — it is to stop performing.

    To stop pretending we can be righteous on our own.

    To stop approaching God as a business partner, or a distant authority, or a system to manage.

    A child doesn’t ask for the plan. A child reaches for the hand.

    The change Jesus requires is not intellectual.

    It is relational.

    It isn’t about becoming smarter. It’s about becoming truthful.

    Remember when Jesus washed the disciples’ feet.

    They didn’t ask Him to. They didn’t think they needed it.

    Peter even tried to refuse.

    Because letting someone wash you means admitting you need washing.

    It means letting go of dignity, pride, and control.

    But Jesus told him:

    “Unless I wash you, you have no part with Me.”

    Same message. Same Kingdom. Same invitation.

    You don’t wash yourself first.

    You let Him wash you.

    The Kingdom belongs to those who know they need the Father — and are no longer embarrassed to say so.

    You don’t clean yourself up before you come.

    You come — and He does the cleaning.

    You’ve been invited.

    Just go in.

    Subscribe here for more!

    P.S. If you don’t have a Bible you’ll actually use, get one.

    Not the fancy kind that sits on a shelf.

    One you can keep open, mark up, and read.

    You can find one here:

    Bibles at Amazon

    (Disclosure: As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. Clicking that link may earn me a small commission, at no extra cost to you.)

  • Compared to What?

    Compared to What?

    You can’t be behind in your own race.

    2 Corinthians 10:12 says:

    “We do not dare to classify or compare ourselves with some who commend themselves.
    When they measure themselves by themselves and compare themselves with themselves, they are not wise.”

    We live in a world that practically runs on comparison.

    Your phone will show you in seconds how somebody else looks, what they earn, what they drive, where they go on vacation.

    Intellectually you know you’re comparing your everyday situation to someone else’s highlight reel. And you also know that what people let you see is often embellished, if not totally made up.

    But it still makes you feel less than a lot of the time.

    Paul’s words to the Corinthians cut right through that.

    He’s basically saying: if you want to use other people as your measuring stick, don’t expect it to lead to wisdom.

    It’s not that comparison is always wrong — we can learn from good examples.

    But most of the time, it turns into something else: either pride because you think you’re doing better, or discouragement because you think you’re behind.

    Both are distortions.

    God doesn’t hand out a single, uniform blueprint for everyone’s life.

    The gifts He gives, the doors He opens, the seasons He brings us through — they aren’t identical.

    Paul himself planted churches in one place while others planted somewhere else.

    Peter’s path didn’t look like Paul’s. Neither needed to live up to the other’s assignment.

    When we keep score against each other, we start asking the wrong questions.

    “Why don’t I have what they have?”
    “Am I as successful as they are?”
    “Am I falling behind?”

    But the real question is: am I being faithful with what I’ve been given, right where I am?

    One of the subtle dangers of comparison is that it shifts your attention away from what God has actually put in your hands.

    It can keep you from noticing the good you could do today.

    Or from starting at all — because you feel as if your small start can’t measure up to someone else’s finish.

    Paul’s alternative is simple but demanding: let God set the standard.

    Measure yourself against His calling for you — not against someone else’s results.

    If you do that, you’ll find both humility and courage. Humility, because the standard isn’t other people’s applause. Courage, because you realize you don’t have to run somebody else’s race.

    The world keeps telling us we’re behind.

    Scripture says otherwise.

    You can’t be behind in a race that God set out specifically for you.

    So the next time you feel that tug to size yourself up against someone else, remember Paul’s words: it’s not wise.

    Better to look at your own work before God — and keep going.

    More like this? Subscribe here!

    ***I’ve said the last few weeks it’s wise to keep a physical copy of the Bible.

    Reading or listening electronically is great—until the power or the connection goes out.

    Will that happen? Maybe not. Could it? Sure.

    It’s a risk you can remove easily and cheaply.

    You can buy one here.

    Disclosure: As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. If you buy something—anything—after clicking that link, I may receive a small commission. It doesn’t change your price.