Standards and Expectations

By Joanna K. Harris

Joanna Harris is an author and blogger with a tremendous passion for God.  You can contact Joanna here.  For more on Joanna and her ministry, check out her website here.  There you can also find links to her other blogs.

I think sometimes we need to raise our standards and lower our expectations.

Let me explain.

Modern culture continually sends messages telling people to lower their standards and raise their expectations.

Example: "Just live together before you get married. Then you can find out if you're compatible and if the other person will make you happy."

Lowering of moral standards – devaluing purity and commitment. Raising of personal expectations – someone else is responsible for your happiness.

I believe that during my lifetime there's been a dangerous shift in both standards and expectations.

My parents' generation grew up with high standards and reasonable expectations for themselves, others, and life in general. They valued character and integrity. They didn't expect life to always be easy. They were prepared for hard work, sacrifice, and delayed gratification.

In today's world, most people have few, if any standards, and many unrealistic expectations.

I think it's time we get intentional about reversing this trend. It’s time to start practicing raised standards and lowered expectations.

Here are some practical areas I've thought about where we can apply this:

- Raise our standards of what we put into our bodies (leave unhealthy things and junk food behind), and lower our expectations that what we consume is supposed to make us feel good.

- Raise our standards of how we treat other people, and lower our expectations that we'll never have conflict or challenging relationships.

- Raise our standards of personal integrity, and lower our expectations that everything in life will come easily for us.

- Raise our standards of how we invest our time, and lower our expectations that we can do everything we want.

- Raise our standards of financial stewardship, and lower our expectations of what we think we need.

Ouch. Did any of those prick you a little as you read them? What other areas can you think of where this principle is needed?

I'm really excited about this concept. Yet, the thought of trying to apply it to my specific situation is a little daunting. And it probably should be.

I think too many of us, perhaps unconsciously, have adopted a mindset of "easier is better" or "if it feels good, do it." But Christ has called us to a completely different worldview and lifestyle. He calls us to the highest standard: His life living through us, and His choice of humble and self-less expectations. 

This life is not about me – my comfort, ease, happiness, or personal fulfillment. This life is about God's glory.

If we lower our standards and pursue unrealistic, selfish expectations, we’ll only end up unhappy, unfulfilled and wondering where our life went.

But the good news is that as we rely on God’s power and grace to live with His higher standards and Spirit-led expectations, God Himself fills us with His comfort, His joy and happiness, and sweet satisfaction in seeing His plans for us fulfilled. What could be better?

So what is God saying to you? Where is He calling you to raise your standards and lower your expectations?

I want to heed His call. Is it easy? No. But by God’s grace and Christ’s life in me, it is possible. And I believe it will be well worth it.

…we constantly pray for you, that our God may count you worthy of His calling, and that by His power He may fulfill every good purpose of yours and every act prompted by your faith. -2 Thessalonians 1:11

Therefore, holy brothers, who share in the heavenly calling, fix your thoughts on Jesus, the apostle and high priest whom we confess…let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. -Hebrews 3:1, 12:1-2

www.newlineministries.com

Immanuel

By: Adam McClendon
www.newlineministries.com

We are conditioned for disappointment from a very young age.  Life just doesn’t always work out the way we want it.  Sometimes it’s because we have a skewed perception of reality, which is particularly true when we are younger, and other times it’s because reasonable expectations are genuinely left unmet.  Add to this general feeling of disappointment the reality of broken dreams and broken promises, and we often, subtly, and slowly develop a calloused undercurrent of mistrust.

Let’s be real.  We have grown up in a culture of mistrust where promises are made with crossed fingers and contracts have an infinitival number of exception clauses.  The marriage vow is now a lawyer away from ending, handshakes have been replaced with documents and signatures, promised inheritances and wills are changed, promotions are given to the “other guy,” and the price quoted is rarely the final price charged.    Politicians certainly haven’t helped: “No new taxes,” “I did not have sexual relations with that woman,” “You can keep your health insurance.”

All this mistrust can easily slip into our spiritual lives and Christmas is a great time to reassess and re-establish our trust: not of man, but of God.  We are in a real danger of allowing the disappointments of life to discolor our understanding of God, versus allowing who God is to rightly enlighten our disappointments.  We must not transfer the emotions based on our circumstances to God; rather, we must allow a right perception of God to shape how we respond to our circumstances. 

The baby in the manger helps with this. 

Jesus’ birth is the fulfillment of a promise given in Isaiah 7:14: “Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel.”

This sign the Lord gave was to be a sign that God would be faithful to his promise to deliver his people from their enemy.  He would deliver them through Immanuel, which means “God with us.”  Jesus is the reality that God came to mankind and dwelt among us in order to defeat our ultimate enemies: sin and death. 

So, every time we see a nativity scene and we see that little baby in a manger, every time we see and sing the name “Immanuel,” we are reminded that while we live in a world of disappointment and broken promises, we have a God who is faithful.  He will fulfill his Word.  He will do what is right, even at great personal cost.

Let us together renew our hope this holiday season.  For, we can trust him.

www.newlineministries.com