BGM

Are You A People Pleaser? Matthew 6:3-4

Posted on by chgruver

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you. Matthew 6:3‭-‬4 ESV

What’s your motivation? Why do you do what you do? Are your actions done so that others’ may see what you are doing and so you get praise for it, or would you rather not be recognized for what you do?

In these verses placed within the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus is touching on this subject. You see the religious elite of the day were known for publicly displaying their righteousness. If people were watching they made sure to make themselves look good. They would pray elaborate prayers, throw large sums of money into the offering, if it would get the people to look at them and comment on how “good” they are they would do it. In Matthew 6:1-2 Jesus steers the people away from this thinking, telling them not to act this way, but rather as mentioned in verses 3-4 to do it in secret.

What Jesus is getting at here is not to do the seemingly impossible of keeping one part of your body from knowing what another is doing, but rather our actions should be done in such a way that glory and praise is focused on God. The pharisees were all “look at me, look at me!” While Jesus tells us that we should be going “look at God, look at God!”

Jesus states that those seeking the praise of the people already have their reward, that is because rather than seeking God’s glory and God’s favor they are seeking the praise of the people and to have their egos stroked. So they have gotten exactly what they are seeking; but those that seek God’s favor, those that do good in secret, will receive God’s grace as a reward.

So I ask again what is your motivation? Do you seek the praise of others or do you seek to please God?

Christian Fellowship – Hebrews 10:24-25

Posted on by chgruver

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

“And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.” Hebrews 10:24-25

Why is fellowship important? What is the purpose of being a part of a local congregation? I remember hearing R.C. Sproul telling the story of a pastor that while at a church picnic talked to a member of his congregation that rarely attends. The guy told the pastor that he didn’t need the church, he was part of the universal church and doesn’t need the local fellowship. The pastor then took a white hot coal off the grill and set it aside. Ten minutes later he told the guy that that coal was white hot, but now since it was not with the other coals it has cooled off and become ineffective in it’s duty.

This is what the author of Hebrews is talking about here. You see when we are part of a local congregation the fellowship with other believers helps to make us effective in doing God’s will. I like how some translations will say that we are to provoke one another. You see when we are in fellowship with other believers we are constantly pushing and challenging each other to further deepen our relationship with Christ. Our faith should be such that when those around us encounter us they want to better their faith, which in turn gets us to want to do the same; a sort of one up manship in regards to deepening our faith, or a faith feedback cycle where our faith spurs on that of those around us and their faith spurs us on. So which are you like, the useless piece of charcoal off to the side, or part of the community fulfilling its purpose?

Romans 12:1 – Who takes first?

Posted on by chgruver

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Romans 12:1

What is worship? How are we to worship God? Looking at Romans 12:1 we see that worship consists of being a living sacrifice. What does this mean exactly, what does it look like to be a living sacrifice? A lot of it comes down to the concept of humility. I know it seems like humility is something that is mentioned constantly, but that is because it is central to our faith. The concept of being a living sacrifice means we are not just day by day but instant by instant laying aside our will and our desires and looking towards God to receive His will and His desires. This means in order to be a living sacrifice we take ourselves out of the equation and place God first in our life.

You see worship is what we place our energy, priority, and focus on. What we worship is what we place first in our life. The problem though is that we often make a list of things in our lives and rank them by priority, yet just like a golf leaderboard something in second place still has the chance of becoming first. You see God wants not just to be first in a list of priorities but He wants to be our everything. This is offering ourselves as a living sacrifice, we take our leaderboard of things in our life and place God at every single ranking. In other words we throw out the leaderboard, throw out the rankings, and seek out God alone.

So do you have a leaderboard of priorities in your life? If so I challenge you to first place God firmly in that top spot, then work on making God fill all the spots, as that is what spiritual growth is.

Psalm 119:9 – Why is Bible Study Important?

Posted on by chgruver

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

How can a young man keep his way pure? By guarding it according to your word.

Why is it important to study the Bible? Well if you were to ask the psalmist, he would tell us that it is to keep us focused on God and to help keep us from falling into sin. The more time we spend in the Word the more we see how we should be living and acting. We see how we should keep our focus on God as He is the only one worthy of our worship; and whatever has our focus, whatever takes our priority is that which we worship. Spending time in the Word keeps our mind and hearts centered on God, guarding our way and keeping it pure.

The best illustration of this in practice is when we look at the temptation of Christ. After Christ was baptized He went into the wilderness for forty days at the end of which Satan came and tempted Him. We see in the narrative that with each temptation Christ countered Satan by quoting Scripture.. But now here is the thing, it is not just enough to know Scripture, we can’t just memorize verses and just quote them at times of temptation; we need to understand what the verse actually means so we can use them appropriately. We even see this with Christ’s temptation, in one instance Satan, seeing Christ countering him with Scripture, used Scripture to try to get Christ to sin by twisting the intended meaning of the verse to suit his purpose. Someone not grounded in Scripture might look at it and think, “you know you’re right,” but because Christ knew His Scripture, He was able to say, “you’re wrong and according to Scripture here’s why.”

So have you been finding it hard to stay on track in your faith? The first thing to do is look to see if you have been neglecting your Bible, and start digging into His Word.

Psalm 37:4 – Where do you take delight?

Posted on by chgruver

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

Delight yourself in the Lord , and he will give you the desires of your heart.
Psalms 37:4 ESV

I have once said it before, “God wants you happy…but not in the way you think.”

Psalms 37:4 is an interesting verse to look at, as I believe we tend to focus on the wrong words and thus develop a misunderstanding of what the psalmist is actually saying. Some people will look at this verse as one that shows God being like a genie. They see that if we just delight in God, He will give us everything that we want. They look at this verse and think God will make them rich, or God will make them successful, healthy, never have them encounter any hardships, and so on.

The thing is I don’t think this is what the psalmist was getting at. Rather than God giving us what we want, He starts to change our wants to line up with His will.. You see when we start to look to God and take our joy in Him, we ourselves start to change. This is the Holy Spirit working in the lives of the believer, we tend to find that as we grow in our faith our desires actually start to change. The things we once desired and wanted to get no longer hold the same appeal that they once did.

Now with talking about the last half of the verse, I don’t think that is where we should be focusing at all. You see the focus of this verse should not be on the receiving of the desires of our heart, regardless of which way you look at it, but where it states we should be looking to. We are to delight ourselves in God. This means we are to place our focus on Him, to put Him first and look to Him as the source for everything in our lives. I have said it before and I will probably say it again, but when we do this, when God becomes our priority everything else will fall into place. We are not to look to God to give us what we think will make us happy, but rather find our happiness in God’s presence. So where do you look for happiness? In the things you desire, or in God Himself?

1 Corinthians 3:10-11 – What is your faith built upon?

Posted on by chgruver

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

According to the grace of God given to me, like a skilled master builder I laid a foundation, and someone else is building upon it. Let each one take care how he builds upon it. For no one can lay a foundation other than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ.
1 Corinthians 3:10-11

What is your faith built upon? When you build a building the first thing that needs to be done is to have a proper foundation laid. One you don’t go and build a wall here, place furnishings, or set up the roof until the foundation is laid. That is because the foundation is what everything else rests on. Without a foundation it is like the man who built a house on the sand where it is not able to stand up to the elements. The same can be said about a faulty foundation, if the proper foundation is not set for the environment and type of house that is being built again the building will eventually fall due to structural problems.

Our faith works much in the same way. We need to be careful on what we base our faith off of. It needs to be firmly placed in Christ and rooted in Biblical truth. There are many teachings out there where we can hear it doesn’t matter what you believe as long as you are sincere. Then there is also the thought that all religions ultimately lead to God, or that since God is love He won’t send anyone to hell. The problem is that these teachings build a faith that is on an inadequate foundation, much like having a mansion built on a fault line, an earthquake comes and that house will eventually fall. When Christ returns if our faith is not right, if we aren’t rooted in Christ and Christ alone then what we have our faith placed in will eventually fall as well. So what type of foundation is your faith built on?