Are we ready? FROG is the first one that come to my mind. Fully Rely On God. "If you have the faith of a mustard seed you can say to this mountain be thrown into the sea and it will be." Wow! If we have faith. That's the kicker. We have limited or no faith that our prayers will be answered. We sit back and lament our lack of spiritual life, needs being met, significant other or even the lack of a pet we really want. Jesus said that he will take care of all of our NEEDS. But we don't believe that because we go out and do for ourselves what we think we need, when we think we need it and how we think we need it. Fully relying on God means we stop thinking. Our thinking only makes the equation of "let go and let God" foolishness. If we were to ask Christians in evangelical churches if they believed that they fully relied on God; we would be astounded with the answer. None of us fully rely on God. We rely on our job, uncle/aunt, grandparent, parent, teacher, friend, and many other sources so that we can have the sure deal. We, as humans, don't like the unknown. Relying on God demands we be okay with the unknown and let God do as he wishes in our lives. Fully relying on God is scary for most people. Most people don't have that faith in themselves, others or even God that we can have our needs met. Try practicing FROG today and every day.
The next acronym is JOY. No, I'm not talking about being happy though that might be the outcome if our hearts are right. Jesus, Others and You. It's a hierarchy of priority in our lives. If we were to put Jesus first, others second and ourselves third the world around us would be changed in magnificent ways. Jesus said, "Count it all JOY when others persecute you and say all kinds of evil things about you." Hmm... That doesn't sound like something that would cause me to feel joy. The first message JOY gives us is that life isn't about me. It's not even about others first and foremost. Life is about Jesus for the believer and only Jesus. It's like this, if we don't want a ticket we obey the speed limit. If we don't want the car to break down we have it serviced regularly in order to extend it's reliability and life. The same goes for JOY. If we put Jesus first (truly first and not just lip service) we will see that others in position 2 comes naturally and we aren't jealous that we aren't in the number 2 slot. Joy is one of the positive outcomes of obeying the Word and Jesus in our daily lives. IF we continually practice self denial and put Jesus first there is little that could go wrong in our daily lives that couldn't be given to Jesus.
FORD: fix or repair daily and FIAT: fix it again Tony aren't Bible based acronyms. However, they do reflect the mindset of the world. We don't have faith when we live with acronyms like that. We engage Murphy and Murphy's law with the full belief that everything that will go wrong will go wrong at the worst possible moment in the worst possible way. Doesn't sound real Biblical either. But this context brings us to the real root of the problem. We don't believe in God and what he says in his Word. We don't believe in healing, provision, and shelter from harm. I wrote a bit back about WAIT which stands for Why Am I Talking. This could be Biblical in that we are asked to understand why we are talking. Talking for the Christian and non helps us to stay away from risk associated with being God's people. Talking deflects, makes excuses and down plays so much of WWJD. Remember this one? What Would Jesus Do? When WE are talking, WE aren't listening. When we aren't listening, God cannot work through us. When we shut down God in our lives, we also shut God out of our relationships with others. What would Jesus Do? He showed us. Having come to earth to provide salvation to all of mankind, Jesus ministered to others. No restriction and no limits. What would you do?
It's time we say what we believe, believe in why we say it and then present our lives to Jesus for the work needing to be done while we wait for Jesus to come back.
No comments:
Post a Comment