Conscious Choices

The theme in the epistle of James is encouraging us to release our hold on worldly possessions and pursuits, in order to unreservedly love Christ. We make a conscious choice to pursue God's Kingdom.

God is our fountain of living water, which exceeds any stale, human cistern we can build for our self (Jeremiah 2:13). Jesus is God manifested in human form (1 Timothy 3:16). He is our example of who God is and how He relates to us in this world (Acts 10:38).

At times, God will use nature and circumstances to judge, discipline or alter our behavior. He will use Satan for this purpose as He did with Job. However, He put spiritual and natural laws in place to protect us from most calamity.

When we choose to walk contrary to God's spiritual or natural laws, we always sow to the wind and reap the whirlwind (Hosea 8:7). Our reckless and rebellious behavior reaps for us the negative consequences of our choices.

Although we usually reap what we sow, God's unconditional love covers a multitude of our sins (Galatians 6:7-9; Jeremiah 31:3; Romans 5:8). God freely loves us all, but He desires that we live in righteousness and prove our love for Him by obeying His commandments (John 14:15; 1 John 2:1-2).

God rescued us from the dominion of darkness, sits us on a hill and uses us as His light to the world (Colossians 1:13). He exhort us not to hide our light under a mesh of worldly cares, but to let it shine out through our good works, so people will glorify Him (Matthew 5:14-16).

When we make conscious choices to follow the spiritual, rather than any earthly call on our life, we reap the blessings of God and the fulfillment which only comes from serving Him with our life.

Prayer:

Father God, use us as Your ambassadors on the earth as we allow the light of Christ within us to shine out into the dark world which surrounds us (2 Corinthians 5:20). Give us opportunities to share our light with our family, friends, neighbors and workmates. Make us ever mindful of divine opportunities to share Your Truth.

We praise You for all You do in our life each and every day. We want to give You the love and appreciation You deserve from us. Yet, we often get too busy with worldly pursuits to spend time with You. Remind us that we are the ones who miss out on Your blessings when we choose to dabble in the world instead of sitting at Your feet.

Thought for the Day:

Call to the Lord and He will answer you and show you the great and powerful results of His dealings in our life and in the world around us. - Jeremiah 33:3

No Longer a Sinner - The Love of God

 

We learn more from one another's example than from our words. We often say one thing, but do another. Many times we are not even aware of it. Our children are always watching us.

The human eyes absorb sights we do not even register with our conscious mind. These images are stored in our subconscious mind and affect us for the rest of our life.

We need to guard what our eyes, and the eyes of our children see. TV, movies, magazines, books and all media are sources of perversion that we can control to protect us and our children.

God uses our eyes to reveal to us His glory through nature all around us (Romans 1:20). We feel His pleasure in His love when we experience it through the details of our life.

The glory of Christ in us is the revelation of His divine character, which changes us into a new creation. He imparts to us the fruit of His Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23), and relates to us through His grace and love.

The servant role, which Jesus performed while on earth, teaches us how to model His character to our world as well. We serve others as Christ serves His Bride, His Church.

Jesus was obedient to our Heavenly Father to the point of submitting Himself to the death on the cross. Similarly, we come to the place spiritually where we are willing to die to our self (1 Corinthians 15:31; Galatians 2:20).

We live for God to the point where He actually lives through us. We adopt the mind of Christ as our own and refrain from living a sinful lifestyle - fully convinced that He sets us free from the law of sin and death by the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus.

Christ's life and death are the manifestation of the love of God for all of mankind. Due to His great love for us, His compassionate mercies never fail us; they are new every single morning (Lamentations 3:22-23).

Prayer:

Father God, we gaze on Your goodness through every moment of every day. We esteem, appreciate and adore You with every breath that we take. We look forward to You changing us into the image of Christ by the work of Your Spirit in our life (Romans 8). Lead us by Your Holy Spirit so that we only do the activities which You are calling us to accomplish with our day (Ephesians 2:10).

Help us to ignore the overwhelming flood of details in this life, which attempt to sidetrack us from doing Your will. We have confidence that Your Spirit will lead us to perform each detail of our responsibility in Your timing and way, without the stress we usually put on our self when we try to control our life.

Thought for the Day:
We are channels of God's love to everyone in our sphere of influence from our family to neighbors, workmates and acquaintances, as well as strangers we meet on the street, the store and the restaurant.

The Greatest Measure of God's Presence

 

We can never go anywhere that the love of God cannot find us (Psalm 139:7-12). He wants nothing more than to spend time fellowshipping with us, and filling us with the greatest measure of His presence (Ephesians 3:16-19).

In our busiest or calmest day, He is always within us, desiring to lead us by His Spirit and to direct us to do His will. Yet, in the hustle and bustle of life we often forget He is there.

We proceed through our day relying on our self-effort and human reasoning, making our own plans without consulting Him first and carrying them out with varying degrees of success.

We continue through life like this, enjoying the simple pleasures and the fruit of our labor, forgetting that God has specific work for us to accomplish for His purpose (Ephesians 2:10).

Then, we hit a brick wall and get the wind knocked right out of us. We make accusations against God, calling Him unfair, unjust and unloving.

We may even walk away from God with anger in our heart. We do not realize that we are either reaping the result of our own choices or we are experiencing the effects of Satan's lordship and sin's power in the earth.

When we walk away from God, we compound our problems. We abandon our best friend, our most faithful ally and our loving Father who loves to bless His children.

God is still waiting for us right where we left Him. He is calling us to Himself and wanting to cherish us and direct us in His will and purpose for our life.

Prayer:

Father God, when will we ever learn? Since you created us, mankind continually walks away from You. Even with Your Spirit abiding within us, we ignore You and do our own thing, making trouble for our self and living as a poor example of Your child.

You are our loving Creator, Father, Provider and Protector. Surround us with Your love and fill us with Your peace and joy. Submitting our life to You as our sovereign Lord, we appreciate that You are just and righteous in all of Your ways. Teach us to dedicate every moment of our day to loving You in ceaseless praise.

Thought for the Day:

Our walk with the Lord starts at the cross and continues by living in the center of God's will, which is the happiest place on earth.