Sharing Christ with Others

God's invisible attributes, eternal power and divine nature are clearly seen in His Creation (Revelation 4:11). This takes away a person's excuse for not believing in Him as their Savior. 

We instinctively know that there is a God and that we should serve Him with all of our emotions, mind, choices and physical strength (Deuteronomy 6:4-5).

Yet, so many do not honor God or appreciate Him. They pursue futile activities, endless philosophies and fruitless enlightenment and their hearts darken further with each passing day. They think they are wise, but they are actually very foolish (Romans 1:20-22).

Authentic Believers trust in, rely on and believe in Christ even if we end up suffering for the sake of His righteousness. We learn to explain and defend our beliefs to those who ask us about the hope we have in Him.

Yet, we never impose our beliefs on someone who is clearly not interested in them (1 Peter 3:14-16). There is no point if the Holy Spirit is not drawing them to God. We never badger anyone about coming to Christ.

We share Jesus with gentleness, respect for the listener and a good conscience; even if someone slanders our good name or reviles our good behavior in Christ.

We are created for God's glory and service, and we will spend all of eternity worshiping our worthy Lamb who was slain in our place. For now, we live for His glory while we dwell on this earth and do only those works for which He created us to perform (Ephesians 2:10).

Prayer:

Father God, break the yoke of bondage that our flesh feels to sin and replace our weaknesses with Your strengths. Help us to decrease so that You may increase. We praise You as our living Lord and thank You for giving us Your Spirit to abide within us all the days of our life.

You are the only one worthy of all honor, respect, praise, glory, wisdom, might and blessing. We look forward to joining the myriads of angels already around the throne in singing Your praises (Revelation 5:12). Lead us to share Christ with those whom You are drawing to Yourself.

Thought for the Day:

The abiding Holy Spirit teaches us to follow His lead as we share Christ with friends, relatives, associates and neighbors; so that we do not push too hard, ignore their body language or fail to read the feelings of their soul in their eyes.

Judging Righteous Judgment

God is the lawgiver and the only qualified judge over any other being. God calls us to rightly discern whether a person’s behavior is righteous or not, but we do not place any judgment upon the person (John 7:24). We continue to love them regardless of their behavior, knowing that God will work in their lives.

God does not want us speak evil of one another (James 4:11), but to edify each other. He wants us to share His grace with everyone we meet. In this way we do not grieve the Holy Spirit (Ephesians 4:29-30). Gossip only adds fuel to the fire of slander spreading rampant through the church. However, where there is no wood (contention), the fire (gossip) goes out (Proverbs 26:20-21).

God uses the same judgment toward us that we use toward others. If we do not forgive, He cannot forgive us (Matthew 6:14). He reminds us that the faults we see in others are actually magnified in our own life. If we condemn them, we are actually hypocrites. God wants us to deal with our own problems rather than to worry about others (Matthew 7:1-5). 

We will all stand before God in judgment one day, and give an account for our self and no one else. Then, He will reward us for our deeds. All authentic Believers will join Him in heaven, but unbelievers already condemned themselves to eternal torment in hell (John 3:18). This can be remedied, however...by turning away from sin and toward God.

In the end, believers and unbelievers alike will bow our knee to King Jesus (Romans 14:11). Therefore, let us not judge one another, but resolve our issues so we do not cause anyone to fall away from serving God (Romans 14:10-13). As we use patience toward each other and don’t grumble, we establish our own heart toward God, and we are ready for His coming (James 5:8-9).

Prayer:

Father God, teach us the balance between those who are spiritual restoring those who are deceived by sin (Galatians 6:1), and judging one another. Help us to pay attention to our own behavior, and to make sure we are walking according to Your principles. We certainly should have discernment and not join our brethren when their behavior is obviously sinful or anti-Biblical, but we do not want to judge them either. We simply love them unconditionally and wait on You to show them Your truth.

Thought for the Day:
Behold how good and pleasant it is for the brethren to dwell together in unity. – Psalm 133:1

Silencing Rumors

Read:
Proverbs 10:11-21
Proverbs 15:1-7
James 3:1-12

“He who conceals hatred has lying lips, and he who spreads slander is a fool.” – Psalm 10:18

So many people try to lure me into gossip by using the guise of a prayer request. They give their lurid details of something they heard or saw and expect me to carry on the prattle. Have you ever noticed that the gossip often talks with his/her hand in front of their mouth and a sly smirk on their lips with their eyes rolling into the back of their head. They usually end the narration with a nervous little laugh that definately gives them away.

There are legitimate needs to share in prayer requests, and I am always glad to hear of them and to pray for them. I love to pray. I trust God to listen to my requests, and I see results from my prayers. I always end my requests with the words of the prayer that never fails, “Lord, Thy will be done.”

It’s the catty chitchat, which people bring to my attention, which distresses me. This mostly comes from hearsay and grows more sensational with each telling. By the time it gets to me, there are very few facts left and the truth is nowhere to be found!

I once heard a preacher say, “If you aren’t part of the problem or the solution, refuse to hear the tale about someone else.” I think those are very wise words. My pastor husband has a rule that when someone brings gossip to him, he immediately takes that person to the one being discussed. This often stops the rumor in its tracks, or it may even cause the gossiper to backpedal and refuse to go to the person at all.

If the facts of the allegation are substantiated, then we can pray for the request. If it is merely hearsay, then we have a moral obligation to dismiss the information and definitely not to repeat it. If we take this stand, then soon the gossipmongers will stop coming to us at all, which will relieve us of this burden. Prayerfully, they will also stop gossiping!

Prayer:
Lord Jesus, I have come to learn that when there are many words, transgression is unavoidable. Your Word tells me that it is wise to restrains my lips. I want to have the tongue of the righteous, which is as choice silver, because the heart of the wicked is worth little. Give me the lips of the righteous, so I may feed many. I do not want to die for lack of understanding as a fool (Proverbs 10: 19-21).

Thought for the Day:
If anyone does not stumble in what he says, he is a perfect man, able to bridle the whole body as well. (James 3: 2b).

A Word Fitly Spoken

Read: Ephesians 4:21-32

“Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will in all things grow up into him who is the Head, that is, Christ.” - Ephesians 4: 15

At the risk of sounding like a schizophrenic, if you ever held a conversation with your “self,” you know that as humans, we possess more than one identity within our soul. Many doctors, knowledgeable about the mind, call these inner ego states: the Inner Parent, Inner Adult and Inner Child. I agree with them, and with the Psalmist when he refers to his soul as a weaned child (Psalm 131:2).

At conversion, I persuaded my “Inner Child” to no longer use profanity to express my feelings. God taught me to articulate them with rational words rather than to curse at the person hurting my feelings. However, even after I eliminated profanity from my vocabulary, I still exploded in anger when someone’s words or behavior caused a fearful or insecure reaction in my soul. I used excessive anger to protect my “Inner Child” from perceived injustices. My anger struck hot and quickly like a volcano, and I left just as many deep scars behind in my wake.

In times like these, God recommends that we are quick to hear, slow to speak and slow to anger (James 1:19). Anger is actually a God-given emotion to use to protect us from injury, not to inflict injury. He allows us to feel the anger as a "red" flag, so that we know that something is wrong. Then, He cautions us to be slow to express it, and to guard against crossing over into sinful behavior with this possibly volatile emotion (Ephesians 4:26).

Anger allows other people to understand that what they just did or said is not acceptable to us. People will behave toward us in the way in which we teach them to treat us. If we allow others to abuse us either verbally or mentally or physically, we are inviting more of that same behavior in the future. Over the last two decades, I developed a habit of using premeditated wording to express my feelings, rather than to use hasty words to verbally attack the offending party.

I am learning to stand up for myself without hiding behind fierce anger and coarse words (Ephesians 5:4). Now I can say, “I feel afraid when you …;” or “I feel like you spend more time with …. than with me, and I need more of your attention;” or “Thank you for your opinion, but I do not agree with you;” or “I will not allow you to do that (or say that) to/about me anymore;” or “I think that you misunderstood the meaning behind my words/actions. Let me further explain to you how I feel (or why I took that action).”

In the face of confrontation, we still make it known in no uncertain terms that the offensive behavior is no longer acceptable to us; however, we respond with a confident, businesslike and resolute attitude. Even in the face of a verbal onslaught, we can state our feelings more clearly with firm, calm words than we can with angry, irrational ones. My husband and I use a notebook to write out our feelings to one another. This way we do not speak off the top of our head and potentially hurt one another more deeply.

God encourages us to live at peace with everyone (Romans 12:18). We cannot ever control another person’s actions or responses towards us, but we can put distance between an abusive person and us. We do not need to overreact and divorce the person, but we can separate and work on reconciliation between us through counseling and calm discussions.

Even with all of our precautions, some people still may not accept what we say, and they may never change their behavior towards us. It is better to steer a wide path around such people who tend to abuse us, rather than to constantly put our self in harm’s way. When we take a step back and look at their actions from a spiritual frame of mind, we can pray for them and also about our response to them, by speaking firmly but kindly in the face of any imposition or attack against us.

I also take my hurt feelings to the Lord. He helps me to forgive the offender and to bless them (Proverbs 25:22), whether they respond positively or not. How they feel about me or what they think of me has no bearing on who I am or on my relationship with my Lord and Savior. In reality, His opinion of me is the only one that really matters.

Prayer:

Lord Jesus, help me to put away slander, malice, coarse words and explosive anger. Remind me to use positive words to communicate how I feel and how I want to be treated. Let me kindly tell the truth in love, even when it hurts.

Thought for the Day ~  “A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in settings of silver.” Proverbs 25:11