Tag: imported

I started the day off by sharing what I learned back in WebLog01042004 at WakeupCall this morning. How well did I do at not worying about my honor and worying about following my God instead? I found myself going back and forth all day. Minute by minute it was a struggle not to look out for myself!

I was reading in Psalm 62 today and amid the usually stuff I expect to find in there, I ran across this line which really hit me. My salvation and my honor depends on my God. This has been a difficult concept for me to apply to my life.

It is relativly easy for me to depend on my God for salvation, but my honor is a different story. I like to keep tabs on it. The world tends to honor me for my accomplishments, my brains, my attitude, all the things that they can see. I try to live my life, making sure all is hunky-dory, and then throw God into the mix where I can do so without threatening my standing with the people around me.

I’ve got it so backwards! My honor should depend on God. My alligence and actions should depend on him alone, and whatever honor comes out of them is soley his responsibility to look after. It might not always be pretty from my narrow perspective, people don’t often respect me as much this way, but if past experience is any basis for future actions, I know that I can trust God to work it out for good in the end.

The hardest part about re-entering an all secular enviroment has been dealing with Christians who know all this stuff (TheGospel) but are not willing to fully commit their lives to the service of the King. For many this is unintentional, they just assume that being a Christian means living life as usual, plus going to church. We, as a church, have made the mistake of preaching a social gospel, not a gospel of radical conversion.

Jesus is alive! Yet how does that simple fact effect our every day lives? Yes it gives us the hope to live, but do we really live it minute by minute; share it with those around us?

Isaiah 40:31 says, “Those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength.” We all need strength. Lots of it. Everything around us will fail us if we look to it for hope in our lives. This is not a promise of smooth waters, it is a promise of hope through the storm. If we look to the Lord Jesus for strength, we will not be let down.