How much thought have you given to the “picture” of your relationship with the Lord do you project to those you come in contact with? I’ve given it alot of thought, especially as I’ve grown older and seem to be bumping into too many what I would call “phonies”…Ii hate making that judgment but the Scripture says, “by their fruit (Gal 5) you will know them.” When a person’s lifestyle and interaction with others is blatantly ungodly, what other conclusion can you come to. At times I think to myself, “do they realize they will have to account to God one day, for very idle word?” Probably not, I can’t imagine they don’t care, and don’t think it through. But that only makes it even more important for the rest of the world of believers to live what the Scripture says.
What made me think about it was an a few incidents at the prison with the staff. They are usually a pretty hard-hearted bunch, not inclined to talk with chaplains, even small talk. A few years back, I became chaplain “by default.” I was very pleasantly surprised at the reaction of the staff, the helping attitude, the desire on their part to come to me with problems…family and personal. I realized they had been watching me for along time . I wasn’t aware of it, but they were, and obviously felt comfortable with me, enough to talk, one-on-one. The more I thought about it, I realized we should all be like that all the time. Our everyday lives should be so transparent and open that our commitment to Christ and His influence on us, would be obvious! We should display an attitude of acceptance and availability. I understand not everyone is a “people person.” And, even more sadly, not every professing Christian has gone though the process of maturing in areas where they are weak, where there are stronghold of anger and/or bitterness or other places of character or personality flaws. I think we need to think about that…there are thousands upon thousands of believers that have NEVER allowed the Spirit of God to refine them, deal with them in areas of their lives that need healing, and that is very, very sad. God desires balance in our lives, and is perfectly capable of making balance a reality in each and everyone of us. To minister to people, one needs to be whole, and only God is capable of doing that. He can and will, if we let Him. But usually we go about our lives after salvation in the same way we lived before we came to Christ. We bring all the accumulated baggage of the years and relationships prior to salvation right along with us, recognizing Christ cleansed us from sin and ASSUMING He dealt with our defects at the same time. WRONG!!! Our minds are not born again, and need to be renewed day by day. Over and over the Word tells us about renewing, abiding, having the mind of Christ…etc., etc. Do we do anything about it??? Usually not, we just go about our lives, continuing to ignore this very critical area of growth. How about you? Are there places in your heart/mind or spirit that you know are not what they should be but you aren’t sure what to do? You are not alone…if you want to talk about it, email me and we can talk.
Another area I ponder alot…what could we possibly do to please God or make Him happy? He doesn’t need us you know…but He loves us and has chosen to interact with us, even though many times I am sure we are a burden to Him. What can we possibly do to make Him pleased He made us His? Many months I read through the books of Psalms and Proverbs, 5 Psalms and 1 Proverb a day will take you through the two books in a month and give you a good grasp of the content of both. Tomorrow I will give you ten principles I gleaned from these two books that give us an idea of what pleases God.
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