You ever feel like when you talk, this is all that comes out of your mouth? Nasty looking, isn't it?
As I look at myself and those around me, I see how often this mess comes out of our mouths. It doesn't always have to be profanity to be ugly; there are many words that we speak that are not acceptable in the eyes of God.
Being a Christian means we are called to be different; sometimes I look at myself and those around me and wonder how anyone sees any difference in us from the way the world acts. We gossip, we back bite, we slander, we concern ourselves with things that are none of our business, we tear down...we destroy.
Instead of bringing the Church out into the world, we are bringing the world into the Church.
We worry more about who has on what outfit, who is talking to whom, who looked at them crosseyed, who did or didn't speak to them this morning, whose cake or casserole was better...it's a song called "Me, Me, Me". I listen to those around me (and myself) who feel like the world and God owe them something and then stay angry because they haven't gotten it...we spit out vile hatred and feel like we are entitled to do so. We put on our Sunday faces for church and the rest of the week we live like we don't have a clue who God is. Jesus had something to say about that:
Matthew 23:27 - Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are like unto whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men's bones, and of all uncleanness.
We might think it looks good on the outside, but God sees the heart.
So, what's on my mind this morning is this - if we spend as much time and energy on our relationship with Jesus Christ as we do on all these previously mentioned things, the world would be full of Christians on FIRE for the Lord!! Here's some advice I'm giving myself this morning :God has given me much more than I deserve, and He doesn't owe me anything but Hell. But because He loves me, He provided a way through His Son Jesus, that I not get what I deserve, but that my sins are covered by His precious blood. I need to be on my face before Him, thanking Him for saving me from sin. And now, He is changing me...I am not the person I was, but am resting in the Father and trusting that He is fulfilling His promise to make me more like His Son. Anyone who has accepted Jesus Christ should be experiencing the same thing, and their lives should be changing as well.
We are called to be in the world, not of the world.
Paul struggled with this, saying that he often did the things he shouldn't do, and did not do the things he should...but he provided us with this counsel:
Romans 12: 1-3: I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.
And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.
For I say, through the grace given unto me, to every man that is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think; but to think soberly, according as God hath dealt to every man the measure of faith.
What do people see when they look into our lives? I don't know about you, but I want them to see more Jesus in mine...
It's just what's on my mind.
