“And Judah said, the strength of the bearers of burdens is decayed, and there is much rubbish; so that we are not able to build the wall.”
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“Pray without ceasing…”
Paul always stressed the importance of prayer. In this verse, he wrote that we should “pray without ceasing.” He did not mean that we should isolate ourselves all of the time and pray. What he meant was that we can and need to stay in an attitude of prayer all of the time. We can pray at any time and in any place. We do need to set aside certain times of concentrated prayer where we are alone with God. This can help begin or end our day in good spirits. But we need to remember that Jesus never slumbers; He is never unaware of us. Therefore, we can consult Him any time and at any place. For example, I talk to Him while I drive. (In fact, when I’m driving on I75, do a lot of praying.) It would do you good to learn to just talk to Jesus whenever you want to or need to. One thing that we need to remember about prayer is that it is not a magic formula. We do not talk to Jesus and say some magic words and “poof” we have what we want. 1 John 5:14-15 clarifies this for us: “And this is the confidence that we have in Him, that, if we ask anything according to His will, he heareth us. 15. And if we know that He hear us, whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we desired of Him.” God answers us according to His will for us. Why would we want anything that was out of His will to begin with? I once talked with a woman in her forties who was dying of cancer. In the course of our conversation she told that she was mad with God. I asked her why she was mad with God. She said that when she was ten years old, she asked God for a bicycle and He did not give it to her. I hope that our talk helped her get over this. I would hate to think that she went into eternity mad with God over such a trivial matter. I think sometimes that we mistake Jesus for the “good fairy” who waves a magic wand and gives us what we want. He knows what we need and what we want might not be what we need. If we ask God for something and don’t get it, it means that He has something better for us. Do we think so little of Jesus that we think that He cannot say “no” to us? I have found in my life that when I don’t get exactly what I ask for, I get what He wants and my life is better for it. When we pray in faith, we should not be seeking what we want but what He wants. Have faith in Jesus that He knows what is best for you. Prayer is not just asking God for things. It is our means of fellowship with Him. Some of my greatest times of prayer have been when I just sat, or laid, silently and meditated on Him. This is when I can hear Him in my heart and mind and discover what He wants from me. What Jesus wants from me is much more important than what I want from Him. Sometimes we need to just reflect on God and think about who He is and what He means to us. I find that this time of prayerful reflection helps me to gain a greater love and appreciation for who and what He is in my life. I think that you will find it the same for you. I challenge you to give this a try and see if Jesus will speak to your heart and mind. It is a wonderful experience. I have heard people say that they have given up on prayer, because God never answered them. He answered, but they missed it because they were looking for what they wanted instead of what He wanted. To give up on prayer is to give up on God. It is not wise to do that. If Paul had given up on prayer, his whole story would have been different. He would not have started the churches that he did, nor would he have written the letters that he wrote that are part of our scriptures today. Take Paul’s advice and “pray without ceasing.” Bro. Joe (For the next few days we will be on the subject of prayer. Prayer is our means of communication with God, and the source of divine intervention in our lives.)
"Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me and know my thoughts: And see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting." We need to be transparent in prayer, because God knows everything about us anyway. David was very transparent in this prayer. He admitted here that he did not always understand why he did what he did, and that he needed God's help in his behavior. David knew that God already knew about his behavior, but he still shared it with God. This kind of honesty is what God wants from us in prayer. He asked God to know his heart. Of course, David never read Jeremiah, but he knew the meaning of Jeremiah 17:9 "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?" He knew that he needed God's help in dealing with his heart. If we are wise we will pray the same prayer. You have heard people say, “I don’t know my own heart.” But God always knows what is in our hearts. I guess in a way we mean that we want to know about our hearts what God knows about our hearts. This kind of prayer can help us to change what needs to be changed in our hearts. It is really great when we are going through hard times personally and God gives us insight into ourselves. It would be a good idea today for you to ask God to know your heart in order for you to know it as well. We can lie to ourselves, i.e., be dishonest with ourselves, but we can’t be dishonest with God. Open your heart to Him and let Him give you cleansing and clarification that you need. He asks God to "try (him) and know (his) thoughts." He wanted to be in control of his thoughts. If this psalm is after the Bathsheba affair, and I'm not sure about the date, he is probably remembering how his thoughts went wild that night and led him to do terrible things. It is true that "the thought is the father of the deed." Do we dare invite God into our thoughts? It is very difficult for us to control our thoughts. Satan is aware of the power of our thought processes in our behavior. He is always working on our minds to keep them on things that will not be good for us or for our relationship with God. That is why we need to turn our thought processes over to the Lord. The Lord knows every thought that we have, and He wants to be involved in the things that get into our minds. Maybe our thoughts lead us into spiritual trouble sometimes because we have not been honest with God about our thoughts. We might as well confess that we can’t control our thoughts by our own efforts. David knew this, and He has written this inspired word to help us know it as well. He wanted God to uncover any wicked way in him and lead him "in the way everlasting." What he wanted was to live with eternity in mind each day. We really need to have the courage to pray this prayer. What David was asking of God was for Him to offer leadership for His life. We will follow some kind of leadership in our lives, and as Christians we just need to make sure we are following God’s leadership. If we ask God to lead us “in the way everlasting,” we will live a life that is pleasing to Him. Be honest with God and yourself and seek His leadership for your life. We need to be honest with ourselves and, in turn, be honest with God and seek His help to help us live better lives. I don't know about you, but this prayer would be good for me. It is important that we open our hearts and minds to God and seek His leadership in “the way everlasting.” Don’t you think that your life would be better if you let God be an integral part of it? Bro. Joe “Now when Daniel knew that the writing was signed, he went into his house; and his windows being open in his chamber toward Jerusalem, he kneeled upon his knees three times a day, and prayed and gave thanks before his God, as he did aforetime.”
If you have been sheltered from Sunday School and church, you are not familiar with the story of “Daniel and the Lion’s Den,” otherwise you know it well. The “administrators and satraps” decided that anyone who prayed to any god except King Darius would be thrown into a lion’s den. Of course, Darius signed the awful decree and it was set as law according to the law of the Medes and Persians, which could not be changed. They did this to get rid of Daniel. The decree, or the “writing” was signed and it became the law of the land. But Daniel 6:10 tells us that Daniel continued to pray to the God to Whom he had always prayed. He was thrown to the lions, but God kept him safe. What we need to think about today is why did Daniel continue to pray, knowing the consequences? Daniel continued to pray because he knew that it would be wrong to pray to anyone but God. The first two commandments are about not worshiping any God but Jehovah. Daniel knew that Darius was a powerful man who held his life in his hands, but Darius could not take the place of God in Daniel’s life. We need to ask if God/Jesus is more important to us than anything or anyone else. Is He more important to us than our lives? That is the question that Daniel had to answer, as did many other great men and women of God in the Bible. In the future, we might have to answer that question with our lives. Daniel continued to pray because pleasing God meant more to him than pleasing people. Daniel was faced with the same choice that we face today, i.e., was God’s opinion of him more important than people’s opinion of him. One of the greatest desires of people today is to be popular and to fit in with the crowd. Because the “administrators and satraps” were out to get rid of Daniel shows that he was not a people pleaser. I’m sure that, otherwise, Daniel was an easy person to get to know and that he was easy to love, but not to the detriment of his commitment to God. This was a choice faced by great people of God throughout the Bible. The early disciples in Acts had to face the question of who they would please. Here is what Peter and John told the Jewish leaders when they were confronted with pleasing people or God: “But Peter and John answered and said unto them, Whether it be right in the sight of God to listen to you more than unto God, judge ye. For we cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard.” (Acts 4:19-20) The nature of the world has not changed and we have to decide who it is that we want to please - God or people. Daniel continued to pray because he needed to pray more than he needed to obey Darius. In those days, Jews had regular times of prayer, and devout Jews faithfully committed themselves to prayer at those times. We are told that Daniel “kneeled upon his knees three times a day, and prayed and gave thanks before God, as he did aforetime.” We would say that he “knelt and prayed as he had always done.” We need to get this down good in our own lives: Prayer is our connection with the Lord and is not just good that we pray, but that we must pray. Daniel needed to communicate with God, but he also needed to express his thanks to God. It is interesting that Daniel expressed thanks to God, though doing so would land him in a den of lions. Though the consequences are not as dire in our lives, we still need to heed the lesson of Daniel and continue to pray and serve God, though the rest of the world seems content to go their own way. The fact of our faith commitment to God sets us apart and makes us different. This does not make us prideful, but it makes us humble. Let’s heed the lesson that Daniel taught us in this text. Bro. Joe “And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: 23 ‘Speak to Aaron and his sons, saying. ‘This is the way you shall bless the children of Israel. Say to them: 24. The Lord bless you and keep you, 25. The Lord make His face to shine upon you, and be gracious to you; 26. The Lord lift up His countenance upon you, and give you peace.’ 27. So they shall put My name on the children of Israel, and I will bless them.”
I love this special blessing and have used it many times as a final blessing in weddings upon the couple being married and upon the congregation. We might say that it is “a blessing for all times.” It was a particular blessing that Aaron and his sons were to confer upon Israel. According to verse 27, it was a blessing with great power and purpose: “So shall they put My name on the children of Israel, and I will bless them.” As I was reading this blessing this morning, I saw Christ all in it. Let me explain what I mean: The blessing began: “The Lord bless you…” The greatest blessing that the Lord has given us is the gift of His Son. Jesus came into the world to bless us with the great salvation which He alone can give. Jesus Himself said, “I am the way the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father but by me.” Those were not idle words spoken in an idle moment. It was the promise of Jesus that He would bless us with salvation. The blessing continued with: “the Lord keep you…” Jesus not only blesses us with salvation, He keeps us saved as well. This is what Jesus meant in John 10:28-30: “And I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; neither shall anyone snatch them out of my Father’s hand. 29. My Father, who has given them to Me is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of my Father’s hand. 30. I and My Father are one.” If Jesus did not mean that He would keep us in His hand, what did He mean? Verse 25 continues the blessing: “The Lord make His face to shine upon you, and be gracious to you.” I think that this means that God puts His spotlight on us, and smiles upon us because of our faith in Jesus Christ. Hebrews 11:6 tells us that “without faith it is impossible to please Him.” We gain the spotlight of His smile by believing in His “only begotten Son.” It is through Christ that He is gracious to us, for it is by “grace through faith,” that we are saved. We do not earn salvation; rather, it is a gift of God’s grace. The same was true of Israel. They were God’s people by His gracious choice, not by anything that they had done. Verse 26 concludes the blessing: “The Lord lift up His countenance to you, and give you peace.” The NIV translates this: “The Lord turn His face toward you, and give you peace.” God’s “turning His face” toward us means that He has looked with favor on us and has invited us into relationship with Himself. We could not possibly earn this, but we receive it by grace through faith in Jesus Christ. With this, comes the peace of God that is given through Jesus. Here is what Jesus said about peace as it pertains to we who believe: “These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation (trouble), but be of good cheer I have overcome the world.” Jesus did not promise us a trouble-free life, but He did promise us peace in the midst of trouble. There is much more about peace as it pertains to Jesus, but we will let this verse suffice. I hope that you have seen what I have tried to convey to you about the great blessing that Jesus is to us. He is the fulfillment of all of God’s promises in the Old Testament, including this one. Bro. Joe “Then I said, I will not make mention of Him, nor speak any more in His name. But His word was in my heart as a burning fire shut up in my bones, and I was weary with forbearing, and I could not stay.”
Jeremiah was called by God to confront the people of Judah with His word. They did not listen to him. In fact, they persecuted him for his troubles. For example, at one point they put him in a cistern where he sunk up to his knees in the mire. They eventually took him out of the cistern, but he still had to suffer the indignity of that treatment. This verse points out that Jeremiah was weary of being God’s spokesman. I want to look into this verse and see if we can get into Jeremiah’s feelings and motives. The verse begins, “Then I said, I will not make mention of Him, nor speak any more in His name.” This suggests to me that Jeremiah was tired of being different, of going against the grain of society. Perhaps Jeremiah desired at that moment to be like everyone else. One of the most difficult things that we encounter is struggling with being different from everyone else. We learn this young in life and do not completely shed it in adulthood. We can understand Jeremiah's motivation. Maybe at the point that this verse was written, Jeremiah just wanted to be left alone to live his life like he wanted. We preachers certainly deal with that feeling, and we are not alone. One of the problems in the ministry and in the laity is that the desire to conform to the society around us is awfully tempting and sometimes difficult to overcome. Jeremiah found that his desire to quit prophesying, and to melt into society, was impossible. What happened to make this possible? The word of God happened. Early in life, Jeremiah was given God’s word. God’s word was not just in Jeremiah’s mind and in his mouth, it was in Jeremiah’s heart. When the word of God is in our hearts, like Jeremiah we cannot let it go. For example, I believe that if a preacher can quit preaching, then he should. If God’s word is not in his heart, the preacher really has nothing to preach. You do not retire from sharing the word of God. I can’t imagine coming across a good text and not wanting to share it with people. I’m not bragging about my dedication, I’m simply telling you that the word of God in one’s heart cannot be denied. We find the basis of this impossibility in the words: “But His word was in my heart as a burning fire shut up in my bones.” Common sense tells us that a fire cannot be shut in and contained as long as it is burning. The word of God continued to burn in Jeremiah’s heart. Because of this “holy heart burn” we can learn a lot about Jeremiah’s dedication. Yes, he was weary of being made fun of, being persecuted, and having threats made on his life. Jeremiah was, after all, a human being with the desires of a human being. The reason for Jeremiah’s dedication was that the word of God was as much a part of his life as breathing and eating and drinking. Jeremiah had internalized the word of God and he had to tell the people that word. Finally, Jeremiah wrote: “I am weary of holding it in, indeed I cannot.” While Jeremiah might have been weary of being a joke to some and a threat to others, he would have been wearier of not sharing what God gave him to share. We need to ask ourselves if this would be true of us. Will we stand on the word of God when it is not popular to do so? If Jesus tarries, this question will take on more and more relevance in our lives, and we need to answer it to God’s satisfaction. What does the word of God mean to you? Bro. Joe “If I say ‘my foot slips,’ Your mercy O Lord, will hold me up, 19. In the multitude of my anxieties within me, Your comforts delight my soul.”
What does the psalmist mean by: “If I say ‘my foot slips’”? He is concerned that he might have a moral lapse of some kind, or do something stupid that might displease God. The way he states it, the psalmist would be aware that his foot had slipped. If we are honest with ourselves, we will admit the same. We know right from wrong and we need to choose the right, but there are times when we choose the wrong and we stumble. What was his remedy? The first thing that the psalmist did was to appeal to the mercy of God. This did not mean that he took the mercy of God for granted, but that he knew that God would be merciful when he acknowledged that his “foot had slipped.” The first step to being forgiven for sin is to acknowledge that we have sinned. When we acknowledge that and ask God for forgiveness, we can depend on His mercy. Let me reiterate: We should not take the mercy of God for granted, but if we are sincerely repentant, we can know that God will be merciful. One of the greatest, and most remarkable traits of Holy God is that He is merciful. Think of how different things would be if He was not merciful. If that were the case, this life would indeed be bleak. We can see God’s mercy at work throughout the Bible, culminating in His sending His “only begotten Son” to save us from sin. The second thing that the psalmist pointed out was that God’s mercy would “hold me up.” In my mind, I picture a person drowning in sin, and in His great mercy, God holds the person up and keeps him or her from drowning. The reason for the world not drowning in sin today is because of the mercy of God. Sin is, and has always been prevalent in the world, but God’s mercy has kept the world afloat despite the sins of the world. This is not to say that everyone has been held up by the mercy of God, for there are people who are literally drowning sin in its various forms, but the mercy of God is available to those people as well. I know that I am glad that God’s mercy holds me up. I do not claim in a self-righteous way, but in a humble understanding that I stand in need of God’s mercy daily, and that I need to claim that mercy for myself. The same applies to you. The third thing that I noticed in this text was that despite his anxieties, caused by sin, the psalmist delighted in God’s “comforts” that delighted his soul. When I read this, I began to consider what the psalmist could possibly mean by God’s “comforts.” I have already referred to one of those comforts, i.e., the mercy of God that results in forgiveness. Unconfessed sin that is not repented of can indeed drag us under, but we can delight in the comfort of God’s forgiveness. The misery of sin does not have to discomfort us if we will do something about it. Another of those “comforts” is that when God forgives us, He cleanses us. It is a terrible thing to feel dirty. If the dirt is on the outside, it is easily cleaned off, but the “dirt” that is within caused by sin causes self-loathing and depression. We do not have to go through life feeling dirty, because God will comfort us with His forgiveness. If you feel “dirty” right now, you can be cleansed by God’s forgiveness through the blood of Christ. The next “comfort” that comes to my mind is to be in good relationship and fellowship with God. It is good to feel that there is nothing uncomfortable between ourselves and God. We can thank God that, though we will never be perfect, we can have a good relationship with Him because of His mercy and forgiveness. When your foot slips, thank God for His mercy and lean on Him for forgiveness. You have the promise of the Bible that God will forgive and cleanse you. Bro. Joe “The days of our lives are seventy years; and if by reason of strength they are eighty years, yet their boast is only labor and sorrow; for it is soon cut off and we fly away. 11. Who knows the power of your anger? For as fear of You, so is your wrath. 12. So teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.”
Obviously, verse 10 is not a promise that one will live seventy years, nor that one will die after living seventy years. I can prove the latter by reason of the fact that I reached seventy six this year and am still kicking – though not as high as I once did. The psalmist, in this case Moses, is comparing our longevity to that of God. In Psalm 90:2 he wrote: “Even from everlasting to everlasting You are God.” This means that God is infinite, while we are finite. Since we are bound to die and go out into eternity, Moses gives us some advice as to how we should live our finite lives. He tells us to “number our days.” In one sense this means to live our lives one day at a time since we have no other choice. It also means that we are to make each day count for something good – for God. We waste a lot of time taking care of our little concerns, while the world goes about its business going to hell. As followers of Jesus Christ, we need to make each day count for Him by doing the right things at the right times, and being careful that we do not waste these precious days. We should be careful each day to not do those things that we should not do, and to do those things that we should do. If we are to “number our days,” we need to remember that it is not enough to not do the things that we should not do. A lot of people think that they are numbering their days correctly when they spend their days navel gazing and being proud that they are not acting like the rest of the world. This is commendable to a point, but to really “number our days” we should give equal thought to doing those things that we should do. In other words, it is not enough to be negatively good, we should also strive to be positively good. We should live so that the world is a better place because we are in it. Since we will have to answer to God for how we have “numbered our days,” we need to be aware that His judgment will be based on what we have done, as well as what we have not done. (Read Matthew 25:31-46.) The text tells us to “number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.” The Bible teaches us that everything that we do not do and that we do is based on what is in our hearts. Proverbs 4:26 tells us: “Keep your heart with all diligence: for out of it are the issues of life.” I like the NIV translation of this verse: “Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life.” I like “above all else guard your heart…” It is from what is in our hearts that we live our lives. If hatred is in our hearts, we will hate people that we want to hate and feel justified in it. If we constantly have earthly desires in our hearts, we will live to please the flesh instead of Jesus. This is why God sends the Holy Spirit to live in our hearts. We can depend on His leadership to keep us from wasting our days on frivolous things that do not last eternally. At this point, we need to pause and ask ourselves how we are doing with “numbering our days.” What do we need to stop doing that we are presently doing? What do we need to do that we are presently not doing? Who is it that we have not forgiven and robbed ourselves of the peace that forgiveness can bring into our lives? I can’t answer these questions, and others that might arise, for you. I have enough to ponder for myself. Keep in mind that this is not my advice; rather, it is advice from the word of God and we would do well to heed it. Do it! Bro. Joe “A merry heart makes a cheerful countenance (face): but by sorrow of the heart the spirit is broken.” Proverbs 15:13 “A merry heart does good like a medicine: but a broken spirit dries the bones.” Proverbs 17:22
Our hearts should be merry and it should show on our faces. If we have broken spirits we will not reflect the joy that is in our hearts. A broken spirit is the result of not being able to get over the reason for mourning. This means that the negative things of life have depressed us and we can’t move on from them. Jesus told us not to worry, because worry cannot change anything. It is this worry over life’s negative things that cause our spirits to be broken. We are to meet all of life in faith. We are not only saved by faith, but we are also sustained by faith. Faith will help us to meet all of the troubles of life and still maintain merry hearts. We can take Paul as an example. When Paul wrote the Book of Philippians, he was in jail in Rome, yet in this book he wrote about joy and rejoicing. An example is found in Philippians 2:17-18: ‘Yea, and if I be offered upon the sacrifice and service of your faith, I joy and rejoice with you all. 18. For the same cause also do you joy, and rejoice with me.” One would think that Paul would have been filled with complaints about his situation. What was Paul’s secret? If he mourned, it was over things that really mattered, and usually had something to do with someone else. He did not mourn over his own sufferings, but rejoiced that he could suffer for Jesus. This takes more than a “Sunday-go-to-meeting” faith. This takes a faith that is rooted deeply in the heart and makes a difference in the way we feel, the way we act and the way we look. Paul definitely did not have “a broken spirit that dries the bones.” We need to have that kind of faith. I love to be around people who love to laugh. I understand that we cannot always laugh, because not everything can make us laugh. But I treasure the joy of laughter in my own life. I discovered years ago that, unlike other people, instead of having fits of crying when the going got hard, I would laugh. I remember when I was in college (o.k. it was a long time ago) when the pressure got almost unbearable, I would have fits of laughter. I’m not writing this to brag about my own faith, but to tell you that it is often better to laugh than to cry. A lot of the time, I was laughing at myself. If we have merry hearts, we will learn how to laugh at ourselves. I’ve known people who loved to play jokes on other people and would laugh and laugh at them. When the tables were turned and the joke was on them, they pouted and complained. That’s not a real Christian spirit. That’s not even a good human spirit. I am not implying that we should laugh and be merry all of the time. I am simply stating that we will be better witnesses for Jesus, and better people, if we will allow the joy of Jesus in us to show on our faces. If you want to be a “contagious” Christian, I suggest that you work on having a merry heart and a face that reflects it. To start, I suggest that you take the advice of one of my seminary professors and go look in a mirror and laugh at yourself for awhile. He said that was a healthy outlook on life, and I agree. Bro. Joe “But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.”
In his letter to dispersed Christian Jews, James put a lot of emphasis on works. He famously wrote that “faith without works is dead being alone.” Of course, you can turn that around and say that “works without faith is dead being alone.” I don’t think James would disagree with that. Some people think that James and Paul had a big disagreement about faith and works. It is true that Paul stressed faith over works, but he certainly did not exclude works. Take Ephesians 2:8-10 for example: “ For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves; it is a gift of God: 9. Not of works, lest any man should boast. 10. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.” It’s not like we have to choose faith or works. I think that both James and Paul would agree tthat salvation comes by faith in Jesus because of the grace of God - period. But we are saved by faith in Jesus to do the works that He would have us do. In fact, Paul wrote that these works were “before ordained.” We were not only predestined to be saved by faith in Christ, but also to do good works in His name. There I’ve settled the faith and works argument. Lol, J If works are important then we should take James at his word and “be doers of the word.” We were not called to salvation to be “pew sitters.” I do not want in any way to denigrate church attendance, because I think that it is important. But I think that we need to view church attendance as a prelude for the work that we will do for the Lord during the week. I view church attendance as our “service station” to get us ready to do what we are supposed to do according to the word of God. I think that Jesus called us to “be doers of the word” when He commanded us to go into all the world “and make disciples of all nations.” That cannot be done without some effort. Take Paul for example, he really worked for the Lord in starting all of the churches that he started. The letters of Paul that we have in the Bible are only a few of all of the letters that he wrote. Not all of Paul’s letters were inspired as scripture. Paul not only worked to promote the Christian faith, when he had to Paul also worked to support himself in order to be able to preach the word. Paul is a supreme example of a “doer of the word.” The question is, are you a “doer of the word”? Of all the things that you do in a week, how many of them could be defined as Christian service? I’m not being negative here, because you might be a great servant of God, but it is a question that needs to be asked and each of us needs to answer it. I’m not necessarily talking about work done at your church, though that would qualify. I’m mainly concerned about what we do during the week when we are out in the world. It is in this world that we really need to serve Jesus. What can you do to serve Him in the world? To start with you can be a decent, loving human being. Paul gave an apt reminder in Galatians 6:10: “Therefore as we have opportunity, let us do good to all, especially to those who are of the household of faith.” It begins in the church and goes into the world as we seek to “do good to all.” Being a decent, loving person is the starting point, but there are other things that the Lord would have us do. I could give you a list of what I think, but I am going to leave it to you to decide what good things you could do that would make you a “doer of the word.” The important thing is that you be aware of James’s admonition and seek to carry it out in your life. Read this and go out into the world and “be a doer of the word.” Bro. Joe |
AuthorDr. Joe Beauchamp is the author of this blog and website. Categories
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