2023-04-07
Good Morning Dear Ones,
Have we personally given God all we have to offer? Do we trust Him? These are tough questions to ponder, but the answers we can give in all honesty matter greatly to gaining eternal life. Yes, we often use such words as loyalty, honor, heartfelt faith, obedience, thanks, praise, trust and so on in our prayers, but do our actions match up with words? Certainly, God can answer those questions because He sees everything [HE 4: 13]. What He tells us is the truth and matches up with HE 4: 12, a spoken criteria for truth. If we feel nervous after reading this paragraph, then we have some transformative work to do. If not, we have been studying our Scriptures well, understanding God’s will from them, and have coordinated our thoughts and actions with the word of God. Wanting to abide by JAS 2: 17, “In the same way, faith by itself, if it isn’t accompanied by actions is dead.”
RO 14: 17, “For the Kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking, but of righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit, because anyone who serves Christ in this way is pleasing God and receives human approval.” I love the book of Romans because it explains what we need to know in such a clear and easy way to understand. It deals with vital knowledge that we need to have to gain eternal life. Verse 19 urges us on by saying, “Let us therefore make every effort to do what leads to peace and to mutual edification.” That is what I take as Christ’s way to send me out to share His Gospel and the rest of what I can that I find in the Bible. It is at the basis of every message I send out, whether written, spoken, taught, or decisive action. Am I perfect? Heavens no! Only our Lord Jesus can make that assertion about Himself. We humans, myself included, are riddled with sin that must be openly confessed and expunged from our lives.
Admittedly, we humans have to eat, be clothed, have transportation, tasks assigned by the Lord, have water to drink, and housing. They all cost more and more all the time, something the Lord understands. If we are not retired, then as adults we must have jobs to generate money for these things. Should money alone determine our whole lives? Once again, I must use the scriptures to answer: MT 6: 24, “No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.” This is where an individual must decide: Will I walk through the door marked “Faith” and serve God, or will I reject Him in favor of material wealth? A well-balanced believer in Jesus Christ decides to nourish all four parts of himself: His emotions, physical health, his intellect, and spirit. (The latter is a matter of being open to the Holy Spirit). In this person, a decision to be God-led, rather than human-led has been made.
What are some of the characteristics of a God-led person? He has yielded control and direction of his life to the Holy Spirit. He has joy in aloneness and peace in provision. He has joy in what he is doing and has taken time to study the Scriptures, leading to knowledge, understanding, and hopefully, wisdom. He is at peace with God and with other people, remembering JN 13: 34-35, “A new commandment I [Jesus] give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are My disciples, if you love one another.” To my [Lynn’s] thinking there is nothing more important than showing each other the love of Christ. That applies to our horizontal relationship with other people and our vertical relationship with God. All that needs to be said about love can be found in 1 COR 13: 1-12 and verse 13, “And now these three remain: faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love.”
If you wonder about joy and peace, they are byproducts of living by what the Holy Spirit teaches us and yielding control over our lives to Him. As for joy in aloneness, this is our prime time to enjoy God’s company and be in prayerful conversations with Him. At those times of reaching a need to make a decision, the Holy Spirit can be consulted in prayer first, just as Jesus Himself did. God’s third personality will answer, “yes,” “no,” or “maybe later.” Anything God says to us can be taken as wise and righteous, because “God has no evil in Him” [1 JN 1: 5]. He will never abandon us [PS 9: 9-10]. He may make us wait for His answer, because He always chooses the perfect time and way to maximize the good He is doing or lesson He is teaching.
PRAYER: O Lord, for us to get the most out of Your responses to our prayers, we must be patient, love others as You love us, be conscious of setting an example of obediently faithful living with leadership of our lives in Your capable hands. As we go through our lives, we must be cognizant of the legacy we are building to leave behind us. We’ve been told in Your word, that people who are evil will be forgotten and those who are righteous will be remembered [PR 10: 7; 1 PET 2: 2; REV 21: 8]. You are a God, who wants to have us, Your adopted children, remembered forever! We thank and praise You for the love You have for us; in Christ’s holy/mighty name we pray. Amen.
NEXT WEEK: There is more to say about prayerful ones, and the Holy Spirit commands that I write about that subject in connection with the gifts of the Holy Spirit Consider how you, as an individual and a member of a congregation want to be remembered. Do you yield control of Your life to the Holy Spirit? This vital subject will be discussed in the context already stated, consideration that I believe all of us must take into account. We will need to give account of our lives eventually to the Lord Jesus. Of course, He is hoping we will tell the truth and gain eternal life by this effort. His attitude is explained by the definitions of love in 1 COR 13: 1-8. Everyone likes a story to have a wonderful ending, even our Lord. I certainly want to give Him the kind of account that makes Him pleased! Despite that we are born with sin and add our own sins to it, He has created us to be capable of delivering on that aim. Now, we must see if an honest account of our own lives will produce the desired effect. Let’s join together to help as many of us as possible to do exactly that! If we ask the Lord for help in this effort, I think He will be delighted to answer that prayer in the affirmative. Praise and thanks be to Him!
Grace Be With You Always,
Lynn, JS 24: 15
© Lynn Johnson 2023. All Rights Reserved
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