Honor God with Your Life!

I think you know that I work and minister to students and that is one place where my heart lies. Well, several years ago a friend of mine told me how she had created an internship for young adults, however, she had struggled with them because they were so busy explaining to her how good they were and how much they were worth. Needless to say, they would have done better to show her than to tell her. 

Too often, instead of allowing our work to speak for us, we want to explain who and what we are. People hear what we tell them, but they believe what they see and feel. That’s why faith is sometimes hard for people. They want to see the results and not just hope for them or have a confident belief they will come to pass. That is not how God works – Christ followers believe to see (2 Cor 5:7) and not the other way around. 

That brings us back to how we live our lives. Ever tried something before you were ready for it? Ever jumped into something too early? In most cases, doing so causes all sorts of problems and stress. In my zeal to do some things, I’ve sometimes jumped ahead of myself. It has never ended well but I did learn some lessons along the way. 

1. Give your best to God and He will bless you. The scriptures say to seek God first and His righteousness and all things will be added to you (Matt 6:33). So, work as unto the Lord and give Him glory for it. He will bless the work of our hands (Deut 28:12). As we honor God, He will reciprocate in ways we can’t even imagine. I have experienced this for myself. 
2. Don’t think too highly of yourself (Rom 12:3). As I mentioned last week humility should be a way of life. I know that God has given me and you gifts and skills and talents, but they are not for us to take credit. We only have them because He is so faithful and gracious. It’s not that I don’t recognize I’m good at things, it’s that I recognize I’m good at things because He made it so. Yes, I have done some work to establish the gifts and skills and talents but without Him I would not have been able to do so. He is the one who gives me power to perform. He does the same for you. 
3. Bloom where you’re planted. In all I do, I realize more and more that nothing is by chance. We are where we are for a purpose – maybe to grow us, maybe to grow others, maybe because we haven’t learned a lesson we need for the next step, maybe because we’re being disobedience, but ultimately because it serves God’s purpose (Prov 16:4). One thing I feel strong about is that God’s Will is going to come to pass. Not matter what we do, at the end of the day, God’s will have the final say. And if we just focus on what is happening right now (Matt 6:34), God will handle the rest. Many times we borrow the troubles of tomorrow when focusing on today is enough. 

God is so good to us, even allowing us to live in a world where we don’t give Him half the credit and admiration He deserves. He wants to see us flourish for His sake, not our own. We can choose to honor God with our lives and be living sacrifices to Him. When we honor Him and give in His name based on our relationship with Him and not in an attempt to honor ourselves, He will honor us. Want to be blessed? Acknowledge and honor Him with your life. He just may blow your mind. He's done that more than once for me. 

Godly Women with Power and Purpose

So, this weekend has been eventful. I got to spend time with my parents and I had the opportunity to speak at a Women’s Conference at the church where I grew up (Mt. Zion Taska). What an honor to be asked. God is really moving in my life these days and I never know what to expect. My Executive Pastor said in a class I took that you have to be ready to do things that are not comfortable but that you know God is calling you to – that’s how I ended up speaking at this conference. And I’m so glad I did. I was truly blessed to be surrounded by a beautiful group of women all morning and I learned so much from my study of the message the Lord gave me to share. 

As I studied to speak to the women, I learned a lot about being a woman who looks and acts like God and is empowered by the Holy Spirit to do what God created her to do and not what her sinful nature craves (Galatians 5:16). Can you imagine staying focused on God in such a way that you don’t give into the temptations of your flesh? I don’t know about you, but it’s easy to get distracted by the things around me and not focus on all of God’s goodness and grace. However, I strive to please Him. I do get off track sometimes, but thankfully, He draws me back. I’m thankful for that. 

So, back to the Godly women and the traits they exhibit. A few that jumped out at me include: 

1. Godly women are God-fearing – they are in reverent awe of His holiness and they live lives to honor Him. Women who fear God strive to live righteous lives, embrace truth, live in obedience and love others as Jesus Christ demonstrated and instructed us to do (Mark 12:30-31).
2. Godly women are mature – they control their emotions and bring every thought into submission (2 Corinthians 10:5) to make it obedient to Christ. This takes time, attention and experiences. James 1:2-4 tells us to count it all joy when we run into various trials because the testing of our faith works patience and patience leads us to maturity.
3. Godly women are devoted – they are determined to follow God and do the right thing. They are intentional, loyal and committed. Thankfully, when we are committed, God promises that He will help us (Psa 37:3-7) and make our paths straight (Prov 3:1-6).
4. Godly women are humble – they don’t have to toot their own horns because that’s not important to them. They are focused on pleasing God and not thinking too highly of themselves (Rom 12:3). If promotion comes, it comes from God (Psa 75:6-7).

There are definitely other traits, but these informed me of who I am striving to be – a Godly woman with power and purpose striving to do God’s will. What about you? 

Who Are You?

Over the past few weeks, we’ve been studying “Who Am I?” in middle school ministry. As I’ve learned more as I prepared for class and I thought I would share here. So many times, we are defined by what we do or our title – at work and at home. We search for value and meaning from those around us. Our identity and how we define ourselves drives our thoughts and actions and many times to our detriment. We get so busy trying to “do” that we stop “being”. 

That’s why it is so freeing to be defined by our Creator and to know who we are and who we were created to be. God told us who we are in His Word, but we forget or don’t really grasp what it means. It doesn’t make sense that the creation can define itself, even if it has the ability to reason and the gift of free will. No matter what we call ourselves, we were defined before we were born. According to the word, we are more than conquerors in Christ (Rom 8:37).  We are the head and not the tail.  We are above and not beneath (Deut 28:13).  We are salt and light in the earth (Matt 5:13-16). If we begin to speak the Word over our lives, I believe we will begin to line up with what the Word says and see our lives change. 

So, let’s talk more about a few of the identifying traits right now:

We were created in the image of God (Gen 1:27), whether we choose to have a relationship with Him through Jesus or not. God gave us the ability to be inventive and creative. He gave us the ability to reason and think for ourselves. He gave us the ability to learn and love and show kindness. We are created in His image but still dependent upon Him for our very lives. We only exist at His allowance. 

If we’ve been saved by His magnificent Grace, we are the righteousness of God…not because of anything we did or can do in the future but because of Jesus’ death, burial and resurrection. Because Jesus is righteous, when we accept Him as personal savior, His righteousness becomes ours (2 Cor 5:21). There is nothing we can do to deserve to be righteous or anything we can say that makes us righteous – it is all Jesus’s doing, but we do have to accept the gift He gives. We couldn’t earn it, it is by God’s grace that we are saved through faith (Eph 2:8-9).

Christ followers are Citizens of Heaven (Phil 3:20-21). The bible is clear that we are visitors in this world. We are not here to stay. When we accept Jesus, we get our citizenship in Heaven and that is where we will spend eternity. Because the soul doesn’t die, it will go somewhere. As followers of Jesus, we can rest in confidence that we will go to the place He is preparing for us where we will be with Him (John 14:2-3). 

How does it make you feel to know how God thinks of you? It makes me feel valuable and able to stand in the now knowing that I don’t have to be perfect or different. He wants me to be fully my authentic self…..the person He made me to be – not who I think I ought to be or who pleases me – I’m not on the throne. He is. 

Who are You Laboring for?

Happy Labor Day! On today or all days when we celebrate the social and economic achievements of American workers, it’s appropriate to take a step back to look at who we have been laboring for.  Of course, we work so that we can eat and take care of our families (2 Th 3:11). God created us to have dominion and to take care of that with which we’ve been blessed (Gen 1:28). We have a job to do, however, we much evaluate who we’re working for. Are we working for ourselves or for some boss or are we working for the Lord? 

Taking a look at the Apostle Paul, while he was going on missionary journeys and leading Gentiles to Christ everywhere he went, he was still making tents to support his life (Acts 18:1-4). He was not dependent upon the church to take care of him. He wanted everyone to be clear that he was not there to take from them but that he was on a mission from God to introduce and preach the Gospel to those who did not know Jesus. He was about the Lord’s business. Are you? 

So I pose the question again – who are YOU working for? Are you on the throne or is Jesus? When was the last time you introduced someone to Jesus? Do you talk about the good news of Jesus in your workplace? Do you share the love of Christ at the grocery store? Do you bless those around you as you go about your way? We are be salt and light in the world (Matt 5:13-16). If we are not introducing those around us to the good news of Jesus, what are we doing? 

If we know Jesus, we are citizens of Heaven (Phil 3:20).  We’re just visiting this world. Life in this place is so short, we have maybe a century (at the most) here and then we’re gone. What will we be able to point to when we’re asked what we’ve been doing all these years (Rom 14:12)? Will we be able to point to souls we’ve pointed to Christ? Will we be able to point to someone we’ve helped along the way? If not, take steps now. 

We can’t do any work to get into Heaven or to make God love us more (Eph 2:8-9). He sent Jesus to die when we were wrapped up in sin, before we even recognized we needed a savior (John 3:16).  Because we love Him, we should care about the things He cares about. If we don’t, we should reevaluate our love life with Him.  Love is not about feelings we have – they are fickle. Love is about the conscious decisions we make to do for someone else’s good (I Cor 13). It’s putting others ahead of yourself. It’s doing the work. If we don’t love the Lord in such a way, that we put Him first, we’re wasting time that is precious and we’re missing out on the blessing of being intimate with Him. Who are YOU laboring for?