Seeing everything in life as an opportunity to worship God!
Lunch Devo: ” Walk in a manner worthy of the Lord…” When people observe your life, would you say that it is honorable to God and pointing them to Jesus? What needs to change in order to help you produce fruit as you live pleasing to God? Are you willing to repent of those things … Read more
We must be careful not to forget that it is God who is at work within us to produce these fruits, not a vain effort of will from us. This is a hard concept to grasp, but I believe that many of us get caught up in defeat too many times because we do not understand this concept. This is a concept/principle that I believe is so critical in our walk of faith – Allow God to transform us without us trying to reform us! See, God wants to make us new creations, He isn’t trying to take the old us and form us into a new us. His work is a completely new life in Him. We get caught up in trying to take the old us and forcing it, or molding it, into this new life we are trying to live in Christ. This doesn’t work, and it causes all sorts of frustration. The Scripture above says that we were these things, but now we are made new! Why would a butterfly ever crawl on the ground like a caterpillar again? Why would we ever want to go back to our old ways? We are new in Him.
Colossians 3:15 (NET)“Let the peace of Christ be in control in your heart (for you were in fact called as one body to this peace), and be thankful.” Such a short and sweet verse holding in it a profound statement! Let the peace of Christ be in control of your heart. As we have been … Read more
Have you ever said that you agape someone? I am guessing not. But have you ever had that type of love where you would do anything for them and literally lay yourself down for them? I know that I have an agape love for my wife and children, my mom and dad, my brothers and sisters, and others that are very close to me. I want to be sacrificial and unconditionally loving to all of those people in my life, and I make an effort to do so. The Bible tells me to have that love for everyone! That is a different standard altogether. I don’t want to love some people. I don’t want to like some people. But, God’s ways are higher than my ways, so I must make the choice to love them regardless of how I feel because love (agape love) goes beyond feelings.
I recognize the importance of speaking out affirmation to my wife. I can watch her face light up when I say something about her that I love. I can see the love in her eyes when I seek to please her with words of affirmation. The encouragement from the author is to “let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God.” (through him, Jesus). God loves to hear from our mouths what makes Him special, set apart, what makes us love Him, what excites us about Him, etc. I love this about God! Let’s not forget that He is worthy to receive such affirmation too, right? So let’s please Him by spending much of our time offering up words from our heart that affirm who He is and what He has done for us.