“The way of the lazy is as a hedge of thorns, but the path of the upright is a highway.” Proverbs 15:19
What does it mean to be lazy? Is it just lying around all day watching television and being completely inactive, or does it go deeper? Is being spiritually lazy just as detrimental as being physically lazy?
My husband and I visited a boarding house the other day while we were out working with a clothes ministry. We were bringing over a few additional items that were not available during their initial consultation. One of the people we were visiting had told him that she loved to read old Sunday School books and any other literature that she could get her hands on, so we found some stuff we had laying around the house to bring to her. The clincher was that she asked for a dictionary to help her when she reads the Bible because there are often words that she does not understand and she likes to look up the meaning. When I heard him tell me that, my eyes filled with tears and my heart filled with joy and sadness at the same time. Joy that the woman was reading the Bible, and sadness because so many of us take our education and abilities for granted. While we were talking to her at her home, she told us that she wanted to go to school so she could have homework! She said that she wanted to get her GED so she could have homework every night so she could learn more. The lady was plagued with a learning disability, but her excitement and desire to have homework and be able to get a job pierced my heart. Consider all of the people in the world who have the mental capacity to learn, are given the opportunity for an education, and they often squander it. I thought, “we should all be so eager to learn and work as this woman.”
I often consider all of the things the world has to offer these days to us to make our lives easier, faster, better, etc. From cliff notes to provide us with information so that we don’t have to read books to “bytes” of information to keep us from spending too much time truly learning about a topic. The abundance of resources to minimize the time we spend “working” on something is truly the work of Satan in our society today. Our physical and mental laziness had lead to our spiritual laziness and the lack of concern for the unsaved and broken hearted. Romans 12 says “never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord” (11). And Jeremiah writes “a curse on him who is lax in doing the Lord’s work!” (48:10).
Christians today often spend much time complaining about things that are wrong with society so there is not much time left to do anything to change or improve it. Paul writes to the Thessalonians “we hear that some among you are idle. They are not busy; they are busybodies. Such people we command and urge in the Lord Jesus Christ to settle down and earn the bread they eat. And as for you, brothers, never tire of doing what is right” (2 Thessalonians 3:11-13). Shall we settle down, earn our keep, and remember that our work here is to minister to the lost and the broken hearted? I believe we should. Let’s work to keep ourselves spiritually fervent, physically laboring, and always working to spread the Good News to those who need to hear it.
Friday, August 21, 2009
Monday, August 10, 2009
To Believe or Just Believe In?
“For they did not believe in God or trust in His deliverance.” Psalm 78:22 (NIV)
Does it make a difference whether you believe in God versus believing God? The Bible says it does. I would say that the majority of the people in the world believe IN God. James 2:19 says “you believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that- and shudder.” For the most part there is no denying in the existing of Creator God. Some atheists believe that there is no God, but just because you don’t believe something does not make it any less true.
But should our belief stop there? Can just believing in God, or Jesus, save us from eternal damnation? The Bible says that just believing in God will not save a person. Simply because the passage above states that even the demons believe in God, and I am certain that they will not be joining the Christians in Heaven to eternally worship God the Father. So what is the next step? Believing God. One must believe that God is truth. His Word is inerrant. “And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him” (Hebrews 11:6). When we earnestly seek God, He becomes the master and lord of our lives. We desire to live by His commands, and our lives are changed. Our faith in Him and His will for our lives takes precedent over our own human desires. “Those who live according to the sinful nature have their minds set on what that nature desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires. The mind of the sinful man is death, but the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace; the sinful mind is hostile to God. It does not submit to God, nor can it do so” (Romans 8:5-7). So a person who believes in God can still live in willful disobedience to His commands when they do not make Him Lord of their life and desire to live in His ways. Genesis 15 says “Abram believed the Lord, and He credited it to him as righteousness” (6). When Abraham was given a humanly impossible scenario by God, he still believed what God told him because he knew that “with God all things are possible” (Matthew 19:26).
So our challenge as true Christians and Believers of God is this, to not only believe in the existence of God Almighty and His son Jesus, but to make Him Lord of our lives and seek earnestly to live in His will. Only then will our belief be credited as righteousness.
Does it make a difference whether you believe in God versus believing God? The Bible says it does. I would say that the majority of the people in the world believe IN God. James 2:19 says “you believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that- and shudder.” For the most part there is no denying in the existing of Creator God. Some atheists believe that there is no God, but just because you don’t believe something does not make it any less true.
But should our belief stop there? Can just believing in God, or Jesus, save us from eternal damnation? The Bible says that just believing in God will not save a person. Simply because the passage above states that even the demons believe in God, and I am certain that they will not be joining the Christians in Heaven to eternally worship God the Father. So what is the next step? Believing God. One must believe that God is truth. His Word is inerrant. “And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him” (Hebrews 11:6). When we earnestly seek God, He becomes the master and lord of our lives. We desire to live by His commands, and our lives are changed. Our faith in Him and His will for our lives takes precedent over our own human desires. “Those who live according to the sinful nature have their minds set on what that nature desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires. The mind of the sinful man is death, but the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace; the sinful mind is hostile to God. It does not submit to God, nor can it do so” (Romans 8:5-7). So a person who believes in God can still live in willful disobedience to His commands when they do not make Him Lord of their life and desire to live in His ways. Genesis 15 says “Abram believed the Lord, and He credited it to him as righteousness” (6). When Abraham was given a humanly impossible scenario by God, he still believed what God told him because he knew that “with God all things are possible” (Matthew 19:26).
So our challenge as true Christians and Believers of God is this, to not only believe in the existence of God Almighty and His son Jesus, but to make Him Lord of our lives and seek earnestly to live in His will. Only then will our belief be credited as righteousness.
Monday, August 3, 2009
Seeking Truth and Having Faith
“Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.” Hebrews 11:1 (NIV)
Have you ever thought about truth? What is truth? Wikipedia says the following about truth. “The word truth has a variety of meanings, from honesty, good faith, and sincerity in general, to agreement with fact or reality in particular. The term has no single definition about which a majority of professional philosophers and scholars agree, and various theories of truth continue to be debated. There are differing claims on such questions as what constitutes truth; what things are truth bearers capable of being true or false; how to define and identify truth; the roles that revealed and acquired knowledge play; and whether truth is subjective, relative, objective, or absolute.”
What about all of those philosophers who have been seeking truth for the last 2000 years? They seek the truth to the universe and a reason for life within themselves and their finite minds, but they cannot even agree on the definition of what they are searching for. But Hebrews says “by faith we understand that the universe was formed at God’s command, so that what is seen was not made out of what is visible” (11:3). There is no way for us to understand how everything works in our own minds in our one lifetime. God has slowly revealed information to us over the centuries in His own time and His own plan. There is a reason why humans did not travel to the moon 1000 years ago. We do not know what it is, but God does. Isaiah wrote “for my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord” (55:8). And Jeremiah writes “ ‘for I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future’” (29:11). We do not have the capacity to understand the mind of God, not here on earth. Charles Spurgeon wrote “in heaven our knowledge will be perfect, but the Lord Jesus himself will be the fountain of it. Dark providences, never understood before, will then be clearly seen, and all that puzzles us now will become plain to us in the light of the Lamb” (Morning and Evening).
So it becomes apparent that truth will be revealed to us only if we have faith. But we cannot have faith in unseen things if we seek truth in our own minds and in earthly revelations. It is a bit of a “Catch 22” for those who so arrogantly seek truth within themselves. Superficial “religion” and “beliefs” are human systems that must become relationships with Jesus Christ. The closest to truth that we will get here on earth is the knowledge and belief that Jesus was the son of God who died for our sins, rose again, and ascended to heaven to prepare a place for us there. If we believe this in faith, God will reveal His truths to us through His Word. Psalm 145:18 says “the Lord is near to all who call upon him, to all who call upon him in truth.” Charles Stanley said that the Bible gives us enough information to know everything we need to know about how to live and how to die even though we may still have questions. That is sound information for anyone looking for truth. Learn how God wants you to live and die, and the rest will come in time.
Have you ever thought about truth? What is truth? Wikipedia says the following about truth. “The word truth has a variety of meanings, from honesty, good faith, and sincerity in general, to agreement with fact or reality in particular. The term has no single definition about which a majority of professional philosophers and scholars agree, and various theories of truth continue to be debated. There are differing claims on such questions as what constitutes truth; what things are truth bearers capable of being true or false; how to define and identify truth; the roles that revealed and acquired knowledge play; and whether truth is subjective, relative, objective, or absolute.”
What about all of those philosophers who have been seeking truth for the last 2000 years? They seek the truth to the universe and a reason for life within themselves and their finite minds, but they cannot even agree on the definition of what they are searching for. But Hebrews says “by faith we understand that the universe was formed at God’s command, so that what is seen was not made out of what is visible” (11:3). There is no way for us to understand how everything works in our own minds in our one lifetime. God has slowly revealed information to us over the centuries in His own time and His own plan. There is a reason why humans did not travel to the moon 1000 years ago. We do not know what it is, but God does. Isaiah wrote “for my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord” (55:8). And Jeremiah writes “ ‘for I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future’” (29:11). We do not have the capacity to understand the mind of God, not here on earth. Charles Spurgeon wrote “in heaven our knowledge will be perfect, but the Lord Jesus himself will be the fountain of it. Dark providences, never understood before, will then be clearly seen, and all that puzzles us now will become plain to us in the light of the Lamb” (Morning and Evening).
So it becomes apparent that truth will be revealed to us only if we have faith. But we cannot have faith in unseen things if we seek truth in our own minds and in earthly revelations. It is a bit of a “Catch 22” for those who so arrogantly seek truth within themselves. Superficial “religion” and “beliefs” are human systems that must become relationships with Jesus Christ. The closest to truth that we will get here on earth is the knowledge and belief that Jesus was the son of God who died for our sins, rose again, and ascended to heaven to prepare a place for us there. If we believe this in faith, God will reveal His truths to us through His Word. Psalm 145:18 says “the Lord is near to all who call upon him, to all who call upon him in truth.” Charles Stanley said that the Bible gives us enough information to know everything we need to know about how to live and how to die even though we may still have questions. That is sound information for anyone looking for truth. Learn how God wants you to live and die, and the rest will come in time.
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