Month: December 2015

We’ve all heard and/or used phrases such as:
   “Put your money where your mouth is,” or
   “He can talk the talk, but can he walk the walk,” or
   “Your actions speak louder than your words.”

We all know that talk is not as valuable as action, and yet it seems that most of us prefer the talking over the taking action… and as we read this quote from over 500 years ago, it seems that this is a long-standing problem:

If men used as much care in uprooting vices and implanting virtues as they do in discussing problems, there would not be so much evil and scandal in the world, or such laxity in religious organizations. On the day of judgment, surely, we shall not be asked what we have read but what we have done; not how well we have spoken but how well we have lived.
–Thomas à Kempis

It is not how well we speak, but how well we live for God.

Choosing Christ as Lord, means living, thinking, talking, even your attitudes must change and come under His authority and leadership. We are to think His thoughts after Him, speak His words to others, and live in a way that honors Him and presents Him to the world as the most precious Treasure that He is. We are to be an ambassador for Him and His kingdom. This is the ministry of every Christian. And yet, it can be difficult because our flesh fights against us submitting to another. But there is good news…

    In all of my weakness, the God of amazing grace has rescued and restored again and again. He has progressively delivered me from me (a work that is still going on). And in being torn between the kingdom of self and the kingdom of God, He has miraculously used me in the lives of many. In love, He has worked to dent and deface my glory so that His glory would be my delight. He has plundered my kingdom so that His kingdom would be my joy. And He has crushed my crown under His feet so that I would quest to be a good ambassador and not crave to be a king.

    Now, that’s good news!
–Paul David Tripp

Yes it is!
Father, Your grace overwhelms me. Thank You for continuing to relentlessly work in my life so that I may see You increase and me decrease. Please continue to make Your throne more important than my own. Continue crushing my crown under Your feet, and take my craving to be king away from me. I know that You are the only One big enough to control my life without destroying it. I once again, today, give it over to You to do with it as You will.
Amen.

The first and greatest commandment is to love God with all our hearts, souls and minds. We’ve already seen how suffering changes you and me, enabling us to love God more fully. Yet suffering also plays a part in our obedience to the second greatest commandment: to love our neighbors as ourselves. Through suffering we are enabled to love, give, support, stand by, encourage, and empathize with our neighbors in ways we were never able to before. “He that suffereth most hath most to give.”
–Anonymous, Embracing Obscurity

I don’t know how you have had to suffer…
…physically…
…emotionally…
…mentally…
…even spiritually…
And when we suffer in one way it often leads to suffering in one or more of the other ways.

But realize this, that God will walk with you through your suffering. And even if the suffering never leaves you (as it never did with Paul’s “thorn”), realize that having God with you in the midst of the suffering will be sufficient and enough to count your walk in it as a victory. His grace is sufficient, and we are made strong in Him when we deal with suffering and weakness in ourselves.

And going through your struggle – whether you have emerged from it on the other side or are in the midst of it right now – gives you an ability to speak into the lives of others in a new way. You have new empathy that will help you love, give, support, and encourage others who are in similar circumstances.

Don’t waste your suffering on self-pity. Use your suffering as a tool to minister to others. Jesus was the ultimate “wounded healer.” Follow His example and allow your wounds and your scars to guide you into deeper and fuller love and compassion and ministry to others.

Jesus established the New Covenant between God and us. But what was “new” about it?

What is new about the New Covenant, therefore, is not the idea that God loves the world enough to bleed for it but the claim that here He is actually putting His money where His mouth is. Like a father saying about his sick child, ‘I’d do anything to make you well,’ God finally calls His own bluff and does it. Jesus Christ is what God does, and the cross where He did it is the central symbol of New Covenant faith.
–Frederick Buechner

When you see a cross today, will you just think of it as a nice piece of jewelry or an attractive piece of home decoration? If we are not careful, we will become “desensitized” to the image and the meaning of the cross. When we see a cross, it should remind us of that central symbol of the New Covenant. The cross should remind us of the death of Jesus. The cross should remind us of our sin. The cross should remind of the amazing love of Jesus.

I challenge you to keep your eyes open today for the symbol of the cross and to say a silent prayer of thanks to God for what He did on the cross every time your eyes fall upon one today.

There are only two things that really matter in this life: God and people. They are the only things that last forever.
–Rebecca Pippert

And if this is so, then the two chief concerns of your life should be your relationship to God and to others. What have you been focused on above these two things that really matter?