the basic message #E12
James 4:4
You adulterous people, don’t you know that friendship with the world is hatred toward God? Anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God.
How does God control the universe? I believe
God does most of his work through us, his people. This should
work quite well, but consider that Satan has more workers on his
side. Without being judgmental, look around and do your own
census.
1 John 2:6
Whoever claims to live in him must walk as Jesus did.
Are we in agreement so far? OK, if God
uses Christians to control the universe, have you considered what
an awesome responsibility you have to fulfill your role as
God’s child? Example: A woman cries out, “If
there’s a God, he wouldn’t have let a drunk driver kill
my baby!” Let’s consider the total number of
drunk drivers on the road this exact minute. I have no
statistics to support this, but I feel sure that at least 25% are
Christians. How should Christians live?
1 John 3:18
Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth.
If the drunk driver that killed the child is
a Christian, who failed- God or the Christian? Yes, I
understand that we’re all sinners- no argument here, but if
you drink a glass of wine at home (and stay home) you won’t
kill anyone. Everyone knows the danger of drinking and
driving, so why would a Christian endanger the lives of others by
driving drunk?
2 John 4:6
And this is love: that we walk in obedience to his commands.
OK, I’ll give the DWI/DUI’s a
break. A surgeon who claims to be a Christian prepares for
surgery. Unfortunately, part of his preparation was to
snort a few lines of coke. He claims that it “relaxes”
him. So relaxed, in fact, that he makes some serious errors
in judgment and the patient is left paralyzed. Who failed-
God or the Christian? Need more? How about this one
that few should argue with, considering the number of incidents
lately: an aircraft inspector has a checklist of mechanical
items to certify before a plane is able to fly. It’s
been a long day, and he’s ready to get home to see the kids.
He’s a good family man, a good husband and, you guessed it,
a good Christian. Tonight he wants to get home to see the
baby before she goes to bed, and so he cuts a corner and doesn’t
inspect the flight elevator device. He does get to see the
baby- while watching the late news. The headline story?
The plane he inspected an hour before has crashed due to a
failure in the part he neglected to inspect. Who failed-
God or the Christian?
Ask yourself this question: “Could God
be using me as an instrument to answer another person’s
prayer?” If your answer is yes, then can you say that
you did your best to represent God’s will? One more
time- I know we are human and we are all sinners, but how many
times do we fail God and our fellow humans by being selfish?
God, please direct me to only give you my best and nothing less.