Christian

Are You Looking For Your 15 Seconds of Fame? – John 3:29-30

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He who has the bride is the groom. But the groom’s friend, who stands by and listens for him, rejoices greatly at the groom’s voice. So this joy of mine is complete. He must increase, but I must decrease.
John 3:29-30

How often do we want to find greatness, or to be the center of attention? How often do we get into the mindset of thinking that everything should revolve around us? We often look for what can put us into the spotlight, to have that next viral video or post on Facebook; to be the next chicken nugget tweet, which if I remember right that was one of the most retweeted tweets on twitter. In this world of reality TV and social media, where anyone with a camera has the potential to become a star, that is what many people focus on. They ask how can I become greater, how can I get more likes, more retweets, more followers; they fall into the trap of pride, where all of their focus is on themselves.

Here we see John the Baptist talking to his disciples when they came to him complaining about Jesus becoming more popular than John. You see John had no problem with this as he knew who Jesus was and that he was only there to prepare the people for Jesus, much like an opening act preparing the crowds at a concert for the headline band. John understood that his role was fulfilled once Jesus started His ministry and thus needed to diminish while Jesus’ ministry was to become greater.

In this time of YouTube and Instagram stars, and everyone looking for their 15 seconds of fame we need to take a page from John the Baptist’s playbook and realize that it is not about us. We need to look less at how we can bring ourselves fame and glory and look at how we can point people to the one who deserves all glory. We need to decrease while God must increase. In other words we need to tell ourselves that “I got nothing.”

What are you teaching? – 2 Timothy 2:15

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Be diligent to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who doesn’t need to be ashamed, correctly teaching the word of truth. 2 Timothy 2:15 CSB

 

What are you teaching?

 

How often do we remember people either telling us to “do as I say and not as I do?” Or perhaps we are the ones making that statement to someone else. The problem is our actions say as much about what we believe and sometimes more so than what our words do. When you see that someone’s actions and words don’t line up, how likely are you to listen to the advice that they give you? If someone were to tell you not to drive fast all while going ten over the speed limit would you listen to them? I know when you look at a child they are more likely to imitate what they see adults do over that an adult will tell them to do; that is why the saying “actions speak louder than words” is so true.

 

In this verse Paul is encouraging Timothy to keep a check on his actions, telling him to work towards living in such a way that when he comes before God he won’t be ashamed of how he lived, much like an employee standing before their boss during a performance review. If you worked hard, trying to meet the expectations of your employer there is nothing to be ashamed of; but if you slack off and don’t do anything there is plenty to be ashamed of. Our Christian walk should be like that of an employee looking to get a good review, and how do we know what the performance expectations are? That is where the last part of the verse comes in. In the Christian Standard Bible it states “correctly teaching the word of truth,” however other translations mention dividing or handling the word of truth. What this means is that we should be measuring our actions against what we see in the Bible, but not only that we should as John mentions test the spirits to make sure what we are doing and listening to is truth. That is because there are some out there that will use the Bible to teach what they want, but take verses out of context or twist their meaning to support their personal agendas rather than to promote God’s will.

 

So again I will ask what are you teaching? Are you living in such a way as to promote God’s message?

Temptations beyond you can handle – 1 Corinthians 10:13

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No temptation has come upon you except what is common to humanity. But God is faithful; he will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation he will also provide a way out so that you may be able to bear it. 1 Corinthians 10:13 CSB

 

God will never give you more than you can handle. The people that claim this usually reference this verse; but is that what is really being said right here? Let’s take a look and see just what Paul is stating.

 

“No temptation has come upon you except what is common to humanity.” First we see that all temptation we face is nothing new, any temptations and trials we encounter are essentially just the same as they faced thousands of years ago. What this means is that what you struggle with in regards to temptations is no different than what the first century Christians faced, or even the ancient Israelites. This means even sins that are related to issues that seem to be modern issues, like sins related to the internet, are just the same old sins just with new packaging. So what does this mean? It means that there are no sins that we will be tempted with that will surprise God.

 

The next part is where the concept of God not giving us more than we can handle comes in. “But God is faithful; He will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able.” If we were to just leave it at this then yes God will not give us more than we can handle in regards to temptation. The thing is with the next part, “but with the temptation he will also provide a way out so that you may be able to bear it.” In other words God expects us to turn to Him when we face temptations, that is why Paul can state God will not allow us to be tempted beyond what we are able. God wants us to rely on Him, to keep our eyes and focus on Him in all circumstances; just look at Peter when Christ was walking on the water, as long as Peter kept his eyes on Christ he was okay but once he lost his focus Peter started to sink.

 

So will God give us more than we can handle? If we keep our focus on God then no we will never encounter more than we can handle because we are relying on God; but if we are relying on ourselves and doing things in our own power then we will constantly finding ourselves in situations where we are encountering more than we can handle.

The Greatest Commandment – Matthew 22:38-40

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Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” Matthew 22:38-40

When Jesus was asked what the most important commandment was He answered by stating it was to “love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.” He then followed it up with “Love your neighbor as yourself.” Stating that the Law is summed up by these two commandments.

When you look at the Old Testament Law and more specifically the Ten Commandments you can see that the motivation and driving factor is all wrapped up in love. The reason for the Jews to keep the law was not to make them righteous but to express their love for God who had declared them righteous and set them apart from the other nations.

The laws and commandments dealing with our relationships with others illustrates the concept of having love for our neighbor, to treat them as we would want to be treated. If we are of a healthy mind we wouldn’t want others to lie to us, steal from us, hurt us in any way in the long term. The concept of love for our neighbors fulfilling the law is much deeper than this however. When we love our neighbors, we are essentially showing our love for God. John tells us that we cannot love God if we don’t love our brother, and Jesus states that keeping His commandments is how we show our love for Him. In other words to love God with our whole being we first need to love our neighbors. This is why Jesus gave the two commandments when asked about the greatest commandment, because you can’t fulfill the greatest commandment without the other.

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

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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?

Romans 12:1 – Who takes first?

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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.

Galatians 1:10 – Who do you try to please?

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Galatians 1:10
For am I now seeking the approval of man, or of God? Or am I trying to please man? If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ.

Are you a people pleaser? Do you plan out your actions regarding how others will see you? Do you resist doing certain actions because it may offend someone? How about do you think if your actions will bring yourself pleasure as a priority? This is the opposite of how we as Christians should be. Now I am not saying that we should intentionally offend others, but our actions should be based off will this be pleasing to God, not will this be pleasing to someone else, not even ourselves.

The issue here comes down to pride. What I am getting at here is that when we look at how we can please others, to try to gain the approval of man, we are looking at how we can make ourselves look good in the eyes of others. So in other words we are placing ourselves at the center of our lives. You see when we try to please others our motivation is often to make ourselves look good to the people around us, think about it would you rather have someone tell you what you want to hear or tell you the truth? Would you rather be told that you look good in that suit, or would you rather be told about the tear in the pants around the back pocket? We don’t like it when people are trying to just please us, so why do we often try to please others by avoiding to temporarily hurt them.

You see when we focus on God and are motivated to please Him, others may eventually thank us. That is because when we share God’s truth it may cause some discomfort to people, because of the conviction of sin, but it is a temporary discomfort if it eventually leads them to the foot of the cross. I have heard it said somewhere, and I believe it does hold true, you have to really hate someone not to be willing to share the Gospel with them because when you refuse to share the Gospel you are acting as judge and jury convicting them to eternal punishment. So you see when you try to please others, while temporarily pleasing them, it ultimately hurts them. So which would you rather be a people pleaser or a God pleaser? Do you want to give people temporary pleasure, or would you rather offer them eternal hope?

Psalm 119:9 – Why is Bible Study Important?

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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.