Whatever you do…

Just another quick thought from my quite time…

“Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men.”

This command in Colossians 3:23 is huge! Basically what this verse is saying is that in anything and everything you do, you must (it’s imperative… a command) do it “as for the Lord.” Just thinking about this alone makes me realize how important each decision is. EVERYTHING I do I must be doing for the Lord, it must glorify Him and make His name great! That alone is big!
Just as I sat down to write this and started thinking more about it, I was reminded of a passage I studied a while ago that relates to this in a very key way. In Psalm 96 the Psalmist writes, “Ascribe to the LORD, O families of the peoples, ascribe to the LORD glory and strength! Ascribe to the LORD the GLORY DUE HIS NAME…” In my study of this passage I read a commentary by Spurgeon called “The Treasury of David.” In this commentary, Spurgeon talked about how we as sinful humans can never give God all the glory “due his name.” We can’t give Him enough! So, Spurgeon went on to say, since we can never give God all the glory He deserves, we should constantly be striving in EVERYTHING to give God all the glory we can! It must be constant… it can never stop!
So… All this to say, since we can never give God all the glory He deserves, we can also never do enough for Him… We, as followers of Jesus, have to constantly be making choices, going “out of our way” to advance the cause of Christ, to do all things for HIS glory!

Alive!

In my recent study of God’s Word I came to Colossians 2:13 which in my ESV Bible reads,

“And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses,”

I love the phrasing of this verse. It’s so blunt. You can’t miss the truth that it presents. “And YOU who were DEAD…” It’s us, human beings that have made ourselves dead. Why are we dead? Read the next phrase: “…in YOUR TRESPASSES…” We are dead because of sin. The sin of one man, Adam, has brought sin and the curse upon the entire human race. We are born in sin and WE can’t do anything about it. We can’t deny it, in our earthly state, we are dead, and WE can do nothing to change that. WE are DEAD!
This seems pretty hopeless right…
Keep reading… there are 3 miraculous, awesome words in this verse, 3 words that changed the course of history: “…GOD MADE ALIVE…” Awesome! We as HUMANS are DEAD, LOST, and CONDEMNED, BUT, GOD has made us ALIVE! How? Again… keep reading. “…having FORGIVEN OUR TRESPASSES.” He forgave us. Those sins that condemned us are gone FOREVER! We, AS CHRISTIANS, are no longer DEAD in our SIN! Because of the GRACE and MERCY of GOD we are made ALIVE! WE ARE FORGIVEN!!!

Glory be to God!

“Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned:…For if by one man’s offence death reigned by one; much more they which receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness shall reign in life by one, Jesus Christ.”

Yesu (A World Vision Child)

It’s funny how God time’s things. Thursday night I was at family bookstore when a completely foreign thought occurred to me. I was standing at the counter as we were checking out when a stack of World Vision child sponsorship folders caught my eye. World Vision is a ministry that reaches out to poverty stricken cultures all around the world. Through individual child sponsorship World Vision seeks to change the lives of poverty stricken people all throughout the world.
The thought popped into my head… “man, I’d really like to sponsor one of those kids.” It had never occurred to me to take action in child sponsorship before. Sure I’d seen the advertisements before, but I never really thought about doing it myself. But of course I talked myself out of it because, “I didn’t have a steady enough income to commit to a monthly payment.”
Last night (Friday), I got to go to a Casting Crowns concert. It was a great concert and a great night all together. As I was walking in, I saw a World Vision table set up, and again the thought popped into my head, “wow, I really wanna do that.” So of course… I went in and sat down to enjoy the concert. Right about in the middle of the night Casting Crowns gave a testimony to what World Vision is all about. Casting Crowns as a band and as individuals are very involved with World Vision. They proceeded to tell us about one of the main focuses of World Vision. World Vision seeks to bring clean water to dry villages. Many women and children in these dry villages spend the vast majority of every day walking an average of five miles to get water for their family. By bringing clean water to the village, the children would be able to attend school, which means that as they grow they would be knowledgeable enough to learn a trade and provide for their families. There were two things that Mark Hall (the lead singer of Casting Crowns) said that made my decision. “With World Vision we will see a whole culture change in one generation,” and, “they’re not ‘ministry opportunities’ they’re people.” WOW, this was convicting!
Anyway, all this to say that last night I had the awesome opportunity to adopt a young Indian boy named Yesu Babu! I surrendered to God. Oh me of little faith! I’m excited to be a part of this young boys life and to pour the love of Christ on him. When I surrender God will provide.
Please join me in praying for Yesu Babu and his family! Through the Church the world will be changed! Glory be to God!

Provision…

“But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh…” Romans 13:14

I just finished reading a couple of Puckett’s posts and they really got me thinking. He was talking about what living the “Christian life” in today’s world really looks like. (For those of you on Facebook check out his notes: “Here I Stand” and “Priorities, Rights, and more…”)

Anyway, I’d already been thinking things sort of along these lines, and Josh’s thoughts helped me get mine together…

Several days ago, in my quite time, I came across a verse I’d heard many times, but the meaning became very clear that night. The verse was Romans 13:14 which says, “But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh…” There’s so many practical applications in these 14 words. The word provision is defined as, “the action of providing or supplying something for use.” The word flesh here is talking about man’s sinful nature. So… What does it mean to make no provision for the flesh? Literally this means do not even provide a way for sin to enter your life. Avoid sin at all costs! How do we do this? This is something I’m still wrestling with… but I have come to some conclusions… These are simple yet practical. They are things Christians struggle with everyday. If you know watching inappropriate things on TV tempts you, don’t watch TV alone. If you are tempted to view inappropriate things on the internet don’t get on the internet without some sort of accountability. If drinking or smoking tempts you don’t put yourself in situations where these things are accessible. If you struggle with bad language, gossip, or even just unkind words (Matthew 12:36-To be discussed in a later post) constantly think about what you’re saying… get an accountability partner, do whatever it takes! AVOID SIN AT ALL COSTS! These may seem obvious but think about it… do you actually do these sorts of things? Do you do everything you can to avoid sin no matter how hard it is? We have no rights except the right to serve our Lord with all that we are!
I could expound a lot more on this and I may later but what it all comes down to is, “…whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.” I Corinthians 10:31. HE is all that really matters! I encourage you and challenge you forget about everything else… follow Jesus at all costs… He is worth all… He is your reason… He is why you exist!