What About You?

Psalm 23:6 (KJV) Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.

David had absolutely no doubt in the entire 23^rd Psalm. Everything he penned was obviously an undisputed fact, absolute truth. There was no “maybe” or “might” or “perhaps” involved in the whole thing. This is what is, has been, and forever shall be because God is true. God’s character is unchanging. The LORD is my shepherd!

 

I, like David, can rely on the undisputed character of the living God in everything I may face. Even in the valley of the shadow of death, I need not fear evil. God has me forever. I can hide my heart in His hands and never worry about the trials of this life. There is an enormous amount of peace that I find in following the Lord.

 

He corrects me when I am wrong, He guides me when I am lost and wavering, He loves me unconditionally. In His love is anything I could ever need. There really is no choice for me except to follow Him. I cannot expect the fulfillment of the promises without making the commitment. David made a commitment to surrender his life to the Lord, and he was able to affirm his relationship with God over and over. He knew where he would spend eternity as a result of that relationship. What about you?  

Balance

Luke 10:38-42 (NASB) nd Mary

Now as they were traveling along, He entered a village; and a woman named Martha welcomed Him into her home. She had a sister called Mary, who was seated at the Lord’s feet, listening to His word. But Martha was distracted with all her preparations; and she came up to Him and said, “Lord, do You not care that my sister has left me to do all the serving alone? Then tell her to help me.” But the Lord answered and said to her, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and bothered about so many things; but only one thing is necessary, for Mary has chosen the good part, which shall not be taken away from her.”

Sometimes we just need to be reminded of what’s most important in our service to the Lord. Martha was distracted with being busy, while Mary was seated at the Lord’s feet, listening to His word. When Martha addressed the situation with Jesus, He dismissed her busyness. What can we learn from this passage of Scripture? Well, I’m sure there is more than one lesson here, but let’s concentrate on the priority Jesus placed on what Mary was doing.

At no time did Jesus say that what Martha was doing wasn’t important, but he did say that only one thing was necessary. He told Martha that she was so worried and bothered about so many things. Her mind must have been going in several directions while she was attempting to serve her guest, but in trying to do so, she missed who her guest really was. Every word that proceeded out of His mouth was the Word of God, which was the one necessary thing.

How often do we pray for the presence of the Lord in our lives, our communities, and our churches, only to neglect Him for the busy work? We get so caught up in activity that we miss intimacy with Him. Yes, the work needs to be done, but does it all need to be done by you and right now? Let’s strive to balance our lives in such a way that we don’t neglect the one necessary thing.

The Great Commission

Matthew 28:19-20 (NASB)  Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”

This is what’s known as the Great Commission. As believers, we have been commanded to evangelize and baptize. Let’s focus on evangelism for this blog post. There are some people naturally gifted to go out in the streets, preaching the Good News of Jesus Christ. The rest of us, however, oftentimes shy away from discussions that might lead to sharing our Christian beliefs. Some of us are just downright terrified to discuss the plan of salvation.

In my experience, people are afraid for different reasons. There isn’t one cure-all to this fear of offering Christ to people, but one of the easiest things to fix is lack of knowledge. Some people can’t share it simply because they don’t know it well enough to explain it. Plenty of resources are available to help you learn and share the plan of salvation. Do the best you can, and if there are questions you still can’t answer, offer to find out the answers and get back to them.

Ask God to help you overcome your fear (whatever the reasons may be), and boldly proclaim your faith in Jesus Christ! Your first proclamation should be the way you live. Make sure people can ask you why you’re different, why you don’t get upset at the same things they do, or why you always have a positive attitude. That’s the perfect opportunity to discuss salvation through Jesus Christ.

As Christian beliefs become less and less popular in this country, prepare to be mocked, ridiculed, hated, and dismissed as “old-fashioned” or even crazy. Jesus Christ warned us that the world would hate us just as it hated Him. We are not excused from preaching the Gospel in the face of opposition. We are not given a free pass from adversity or persecution, but He promised that He is with us ALWAYS, even to the end of the age.

The Importance of The Word

John 1:1,14 (NASB) In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.  And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth.

If there is any doubt in your mind that there is anything more important in the life of the Christian than the Word, these verses should remove it. Jesus Christ IS the Word who became flesh and dwelt among us. You cannot imitate Christ without studying Him. His teachings are full of grace and truth.

There are a lot of good things going on in our churches that will not introduce anyone to the Living Word. We need to ensure that there is always an opportunity to receive Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior in every gathering that we host. Sometimes we believers get together in prayer, praise and worship, and forget that there may be someone in our midst with only barely a second-hand knowledge of the Gospel.

I fear that we are giving people the impression that worship is full of emotionalism, rather than the presence of God. We must stop and take time to share Jesus with our congregants in every service, even if we think everyone present is already saved. You never know who may meet Jesus for real for the first time. We have too many people using our churches for social gathering places with ladders to climb to successful, powerful positions.  They know the stories in the Bible, but they don’t know THE WORD.

I challenge you to get to know Him, if you are one of those people. Having an academic knowledge of Him is not the same as knowing Him. Religion is knowing of Him, but relationship is actually knowing Him, the Word who became flesh and dwelt among us. Life in the Word really is better.