Make the most of every opportunity for doing good in these evil days. EPHESIANS 5:16 NLT
Christmas gives us opportunities to do things for people we might otherwise neglect, and we must take advantage of each opportunity. As long as we’re on earth, God has work for us to do. When He’s finished with us here, He’ll take us home. Seventeenth-century preacher Thomas Fuller said, “God’s children are immortal while their Father hath anything for them to do on earth.” Missionary David Livingstone said similarly, “Men are immortal until their work is done.” The British preacher Charles Spurgeon said, “Whatever occurs around us, we need not be alarmed. We are immortal until our work is done. And amidst infectious or contagious diseases, if we are called to go there, we may sit as easily as though in balmy air. It is not ours to preserve our life by neglecting our duty. It is better to die in service than live in idleness—better to glorify God and depart, than rot above ground in neglecting what He would have us to do. Unto God belong the issues from death. We may, therefore, go without temerity into any danger where duty calls us.” There is a child, a bag lady, a prisoner, a soldier whom God wants you to touch this Christmas season. Make the most of every opportunity.- Dr. David Jeremiah Morning and Evening
Good Morning my Friends and Dear Readers from our new home. This would be my first post from this place.
Looking at today's devotionals, this quote stuck out boldly to me.
"Missionary David Livingstone said similarly, “Men are immortal until their work is done.”"
I used to know a man who used to consider himself bullet-proof while doing the work of the ministry. That while he was out doing the work of evangelism nothing could harm him unless that was his time to go.
We sometimes fail to recognize that our lives are not our own. That we aren't here, living life, for our own good pleasure. We see, if we really look, that from the beginning of the Christmas story, to the demands if you will upon the Disciples, life in serving God isn't about what we want or want to do.
We are taught by generations to go out and be all we can be, that we ought to spend our time, energy and time getting the most out of life for ourselves. That we need to look out for number one, ourselves, because nobody else will.
Jesus calls us to be serving people.
Jesus calls us to be a people who are His hands and feet in this world.
Yesterday was awe inspiring in seeing teenagers being the hands and feet of Jesus. They never complained nor gave up in their desire to serve the whole time they were here.
What about you? Are you living a self-serving life or are you living as we read Disciples as being? Joseph and Mary became probably the first Disciples of a kind, of Jesus. Whatever He said they obeyed and did. The 12 Disciples learned to obey and do. This is the example of Jesus Christ in taking up your own cross. You learn to set aside your wants and desires to obey and do.
You, and I know that I did until a short while ago, might have missed a part of the obedience of Jesus to His Father in the Christmas story. Jesus set aside much of Himself and very specifically the aspect of His nature called His glory.
Read again when the Heavens proclaimed His coming, that glory He left behind was rejoicing in what Jesus had done. Jesus said He had the authority to set it aside, that is to lay it down and the authority to take it back up again, this decree was given from His Father.
Are you looking to live in obedience to what you have been called to be doing? There is no such thing as a Christian on the sidelines. There are no Christians who are to be skating through this life doing their own thing. We were bought with a price. We have a responsibility to honor God for what He did to save us by living lives that reflect gratitude and thanksgiving in living and in serving.
We are always tempted to fill in our lives with our own desires. We are always tempted to fill in life with senseless, useless in serving, things.
We can easily think we are living ok because we are going by our standards, not by God's.
The workers in His Harvest are doing the work as He directs, not their own way.
As the Chief Forman, the main Boss, the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, Jesus instructs and we obey and do.
We took a leap of faith in wanting to be in God's Will. God's Will is our sanctification, it's in our obedience to that end.
Are you at all looking at your life from the perspective of one who obeys? Or are your hobbies, your wants, your desires, even your comfort, coming before your serving your Lord? Do you work in a few minutes to pray or read your Bible or do you give Jesus as much time as you can in those things? Do you spend more time on your hobbies and recreational activities than you do in your serving as His hands and feet? Do you spend hours watching sports but don't even spend near that much time in cultivating your walk with Jesus?
Do you so quickly forget the meaning of Christmas? That Jesus left everything to come here to go through all that He did, to make the way to save you? He didn't do it so that we could be saved and then go run off and do whatever. As it was shown in the life of Joseph in the book of Genesis, serve God wherever you are. Even if you don't understand why you are there.
You have a responsibility, and will be asked about it. The King upon His return called each one to give an account of what they did with what He entrusted to them.
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