All in Christian
Are you a servant to all those surrounding you? Have you humbled yourself sufficiently in order to put your own desires behind you, so that you can be obedient to the example that Jesus has placed before you? If so then God Bless you, but if not then take a long look at who you truly are. Do you see much difference in the person you once were and the one you are now?
More likely than not, if you are reading this, you know Jesus; who He is, and about His life. If you are reading this you may have asked Him to come into your life, confessed Him to be your Savior, and gone down in the waters of baptism. My question to you this morning is two fold today... how deep has your relationship with Him become, and, have you asked to be filled with the Holy Spirit?
Listen... do you hear Jesus’ voice? Are you hearing Him calling you to “come”, or is He calling “come back!”? When Jesus first calls us He gives us incredible peace, rest, and lives, but over time those things might subside; why is that? Why have we lost the intensity of joy and faith that our initial answer to His call brings?
Are you waiting on the Lord today? Is there a challenge or need in your life that you are nearly overwhelmed by, and have brought before God in prayer? Are you about to give up on His provision or rescue because you can’t see Him moving? Well take heart, because our God is good and He has never abandoned you.
Who taught you how to pray? Did you learn so long ago that you can’t actually remember? Did you learn by reciting common prayer in church? Perhaps your mother and father taught you as a child. For something so crucial and basic to our faith and relationship with Jesus and God, we appear to approach it in an often haphazard manner. So how should we pray?
Do you hear the Word of Jesus and worship God as you should? We go to church and sing songs, pray together, chant, and recite creeds, but these are all physical manifestations of faith that anybody can do. What I am asking is... Do you allow your spirit to enter into worship with the physical you; in the religious things you do?
Do you think that just because your children are born into a Christian household that they are thus Christian? Sadly, that is not true. Becoming a Christian, or a believer, and follower, of Jesus Christ, requires us to make a personal choice. We like to look at the Covenant that God made with Abraham and likewise claim Jesus Christ for ourselves and children, but just as with Abraham’s seed, that promise requires a lifetime of action.
Being Holy is more than an aspiration or some lofty goal that only the most pious of Saints can ever reach. We are all called to be Holy. So what is holiness, and how can we be Holy? Well, we can study this at-nauseam but let’s boil it down to its most basic form. Let’s let Jesus gather us up in His arms and carry us with Him into holiness.
Where do you go for help? Do you go there for your own needs, or for those of another? And, are you persistent in your pleading for assistance? These three questions determine who we perceive as having strength, whether we are in need or empathetic, and how great our love or desire is that has brought us there. Have you ever applied these three simple little questions to your prayers, and if so, what did they reveal to you, about Jesus, and your faith?
Where do you receive your sustenance? What food do you depend on for most of your nourishment? As humans we are omnivorous which means we eat a variety of food. Some of us like salads and vegetables, some like chicken, beef, or grain, and others prefer a mixture, but as we grow more into our spiritual selves our diet undergoes a change. We see this in the menu of Jesus Himself.
How do we begin our day? Do we read the Bible? Do we pray for forgiveness, and all the active prayer requests on our list? Do we read a morning devotional? Maybe we write one or add an entry in our prayer journal? All of these things are good, but do we take the time to secretly have an intimate conversation with God? God wants to hear more than our wants and the needs of others... He desires to be in personal relationship with us.
Jesus suffered and died to redeem us from sin, but what is sin really? Is it a rule that we break or more than that? Certainly it is bad that a rule is broken, but at its core we are rebelling against God in so doing; we are separating ourselves from His will. Sometimes we sin knowingly, but often we do so without really understanding what we are doing, and occasionally by simply turning away from doing what is right. So is there a way to “sin no more?”
How do you recognize a person who has given themselves completely over to God’s will? What one trait do you see in such saints? If you mull this over in your mind, you will come to one conclusion, and one conclusion only... humility. To become a servant you must first humble yourself, to obey God without reservation you must humble yourself, and to become a child of Our Heavenly Father, you must humble yourself before Him. Are you able to place God before ourself? Are you capable of embodying the absolute humility of Christ?
How much of ourselves have we given to God in love? Do we conform to His will in all things, or only as much as we think it will take to please Him? Jesus was the most amazing and incredible man to have ever lived, and yet He subjected Himself in His entirety to God... He leads us in understanding the true nature of God’s expectation of us. He demonstrates what it means to be a loving Child of God.
Do you devote time and other things in your life to God? If you do, then are you giving these things to Him forever, or just until you need them again? Perhaps you don’t understand what devoting means when taken in this context. What I am referring to here are those things which you commit to God, or Jesus Christ. For many of us it probably begins with a morning time of prayer each day. Have you given Him 15 minutes? 30 minutes? An hour? Have you truly dedicated it to Him, or just loaned it to Him? If you have made this a promise, Have you lived up to that commitment or just prayed when it was convenient?