How to be Used by Him

He must increase; but I must decrease. John 3:30 (NASB)

It’s not about being busy it’s about priorities.  We are only on this earth for a short time and we need to know what gift or gifts God has given us and what God’s plan is for us.

We all have busy lives and some days we get upset with all the interruptions in our lives, but we need to take a good look at the interruptions and realize that God may have sent them.  When someone calls or stops to visit and asks for prayer or has a need, they usually need help NOW, not later, when we get around to it.

Don’t pass up an opportunity to be used by God.  Put God first and see how your life will change.

      

         Lord, help me to realize that you love me so much and you trust me to help your people.  Give me encouragement and wisdom through your Holy Spirit to do Your will.

"But God..."

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. 
I Peter 1:3

     

This scripture represents hope, as do many others.  That's good.  In fact, it's incredibly wonderful.  But, there's a complication. The complication is me.  When a problem arises, my tendency is to focus on the problem, even fixate on it and start thinking about what I can do to solve it.  Too often, I don't let God into the process.  Too often, I don't even think about God, His Word, His resources, until too late.  Either too late to effectively deal with the problem as the Lord would have me deal with it, or too late to spare me the needless stress, pain, wasted effort and emotions that necessarily attend my feeble efforts. 

            It all comes down to what I truly believe about God, about His character and about His word.  When presented with a troubling situation, I can say: "God is powerful, loving, caring etc. BUT I have this big problem..." or, I can say, "I have this big problem, BUT GOD is greater than my problem."

              I need less of my thinking and more "BUT GOD" thinking.   How about you?

     

     

            God, You are greater than my problems! You must be my daily, minute-ly focus, through every problem, through every trial! I lay my days at Your feet; Let the things of earth grow strangely dim, and let Your glory shine brightly into my life!

It Begins With Us!

Ready to BEGIN to make a difference?  Dissatisfied with the direction the world is going?  Do you want your family, friends, neighbors, people around the world to come to salvation?

For it is time for judgment to BEGIN with God's household; and if it BEGINS with us, what will the outcome be for those who do not obey the gospel of God?  And, "If it is hard for the righteous to be saved, what will become of the ungodly and the sinner?"

 I Peter 4: 17-18

Is it time to look at ourselves and ask whether we are acting out our righteousness in Christ?  If we are practicing evil how will the world know the Savior?

But just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do; for it is written: "Be holy, because I am holy." I Peter 1: 15-16

Lord, help us examine our lives and courageously change so we can better show the life of Christ in us.  Amen

Gravel and Stones

               For what I received I passed on to you as first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, and then to the Twelve. After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers and sisters at the same time most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. I Corinthians 15:3-6

There is a visual aid that pastors and motivational speakers have used for years to emphasize the importance of setting priorities; it is the exercise consisting of a bucket or jar of gravel and stones. Gravel is meant to represent the small details in life, things we should do, like vacuuming the carpets, grocery shopping, or tearing down that old shed in the far end of the yard. Not unimportant things, just, the small details. Larger stones represent the important things in life: Time spent in the Word, prayer, relationships, etc…, whatever are the most important things in your life. 

   In this exercise, if you put the gravel in the jar first, there will not be enough room left for all of the large stones. But…if you put the large stones in first, not only will all of the large stones fit, but all of the gravel will spill around the large stones, filling in the empty spaces.

            Christ—believing Him, praising Him, striving to be like Him, telling others about Him—should be the largest stone in the “jar” of our lives; let everything else spill all around Him. He should be the first priority of the day, the first priority of our existence. Paul said, “For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance, that Christ died for our sins…” (verse 3). There is nothing in life more important than what He has done! No greater priority, no greater purpose for our lives.

Lord Jesus, I make You my priority! Help me not to put the gravel in first! I place You in my life first. I repent of not making You first in my life. Change my heart, oh God! And renew a right Spirit within me.

Losing Focus

              One of the things we need to overcome in a long fast is losing our focus. Whatever way we are participating in this “21 Days of Great Beginnings”, we must remember it is not about what we are giving up, but it is about taking time to seek God.

 It is so easy to put off spending time with the Lord.  So many things scream at us for attention. Try putting off those things for a few minutes, focus on the Lord and your relationship with Him; the other things will fall in place. 

    Psalm 127:1-2 puts it in perspective:

  Unless the Lord builds the house,
    the builders labor in vain.
Unless the Lord watches over the city,
   the guards stand watch in vain.
In vain you rise early
    and stay up late,
toiling for food to eat—

    for he grants sleep to those he loves.

We can spend our time trying to do life on our own, even become a success according to worldly standards but be a miserable failure in life and the things that are important in life.  If that is where you are in your life, why not use this chance to change your life focus?

            Lord, keep me focused, give me clarity of thought for the things You are trying to reveal to me. Forgive my failures and my lack of focus, and set my eyes on You.

In Awe of Him!

      In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Genesis 1:1 

        “How big is God?” was yesterday’s question. He is big, bigger than we can create words to describe. Today let’s consider another question: “How small is God?” God’s creation is massive beyond description, and yet…also tiny beyond imagination. Consider, for example, the following scientist’s description of a single-cell: (it has) Artificial languages and their decoding systems, memory banks for information storage and retrieval, elegant control systems regulating the automated assembly of parts and components, error fail-safe and proof-reading devices utilized for quality control, assembly processes involving the principle of prefabrication and modular construction…and a capacity not equaled in any of our own most advanced machines, for it would be capable of replicating its entire structure within a matter of a few hours. (From The Way of A Cell by Franklin Harold)

        And these single-cells are microscopic, not visible to the naked eye. The human body is made up of over 80 trillion single cells of all different types and specialties. And each of those 80 trillion cells are indescribably complex little factories of life! And it gets smaller: because a typical cell takes 10 million atoms to build. How small must an atom be?

         How small is God? As big as He is big, is as small as He is small! Please remember, we are not equating God with His creation. He is the creator, separate from His creation, eternal and self-existing, who spoke all things, great and small, into existence! How great is our God!

        And we have not yet approached the greatest example of how small our great God is willing to become. He was willing to become an embryo implanted in the womb of a teenage girl named Mary. How small did Jesus the human begin, how many cells, what stage of development…we don’t know exactly. But wow how small was God the Son! And that isn’t the smallest He became. As it says in Philippians 2:

        Make your own attitude that of Christ Jesus who, existing in the form of God, did not consider equality with God as something to be used for His own advantage. Instead He emptied Himself by assuming the form of a slave, taking on the likeness of men. And when He had come as a man in His external form He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death—even to death on a cross. Philippians 2:5-8 

Lord, every time I consider something new about You I am more in awe of Who You are! Out of this awe please guide me in making you First in all things!

With His Arms Outstretched, How Big Is God?

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Genesis 1:1

              How big is God?  When our kids were little we used to play that fun game that recognized how rapidly they were growing.  The one where we would ask “How big is Nicole, or how big is Josiah”…and they would stretch out their little arms and we would say together “Sooooo big!”  Not a bad practice to help “in the beginning God” become our first and life-defining sentence.  How big is God?  He created the heavens and the earth!

 How big are the heavens?  There are 400 billion stars in the Milky Way galaxy.  Our sun is 150 trillion miles from the center of our galaxy.  Our galaxy is just one of more than an estimated 100 billion galaxies, and each galaxy has over 100 billion stars! God created the heavens and the earth!   He spoke these things into existence! 

How big is God? 

Lord, You must be first! Your greatness is so far beyond our comprehension!  Rather than try to comprehend, we worship! We put you first in our lives, our priorities.