Invest In Your Mind!

How important is your education?  Should you continue on in college, or go back to college?  God has given you a mind, but its up to you to use it, and to invest in it.  In the parable of talents Jesus tells of 3 people each given different amounts of money.  The two who invested the money were rewarded, but the one who did nothing with it, the one who buried it, got in trouble.  God has given us a mind, and we need to invest in it, and take care of it.  Moses was chosen to lead the Israelites out of Egypt.  Moses, having been the only Israelite not raised as a slave in Egypt, but raised by the Pharoah’s daughter in the palace, was probably highly educated.  The apostle Paul was highly educated, having spent his life studying under the great Hebrew Philosopher Gamaliel. (acts 22).    If he had not known how to read and write both the languages Greek and Hebrew, he would not have been able to write so much of the new testament.  But his learning put him in position to proclaim Jesus Christ’s righteousness to a people yet unborn.  So whatever you decide, college, medical school, or bible school, your brain is a valuable tool.  Don’t ignore a tool God has given you.

You Are Not An Accident

You ever wonder if you being here were an accident or some sort of random event?  Eph 1:4  For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight.  First of all you need to know something.  You are not an accident.  You were destined to be here at this time, and God has a specific purpose in mind for you.  Before God created the world he planned your existence.  You have been made holy and blameless as a result of the sacrifice Jesus made for us, taking all sin, past and future, to the cross.  When God sees you, he sees righteousness.  You can boldly stand before the Lord without shame.  Psalms 139:15 My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place, when I was woven together in the depths of the earth, your eyes saw my unformed body all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to pass.  You are not the result of chance, like some sort of pull on a slot machine.   What you do with the days that have been ordained for you, well that’s up to you.  God has stuff for you to do, but you’ve gotta step up to it.

Compassion

In Mark 1:40 A man with leprosy came to Jesus and begged him on his knees, "If you are willing, you can make me clean."  Filled with compassion, Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man. "I am willing," he said. "Be clean!" Bang, he’s healed.  Wow.  Today I want to look at what moves Christ.  It says He was moved by compassion.  We as Christians are to be imitators of God, followers of Christ.  But sometimes we get so busy, we could miss the opportunity to see someone elses need, we miss, well, we miss compassion.  Throughout the gospels Jesus is moved by compassion, and that compassion often leads to a great work of God, well like raising the dead and healing kinda stuff. Like the feeding of the 5,000 people kind of stuff.  For Jesus, compassion was the norm, a characteristic that defined Him.  He saw what people needed and found a way to meet that need.   Find a person today, look for the need, and let compassion stir in your heart and move you, then watch the power of God partner with you to meet that need, to and then He gets the glory.  Jesus was moved by compassion, we can be moved too.

Predicting The Weather

Predicting the weather seems like a roll of the dice.  Weather changes from day to day, season to season, there are cold days in summer, hot days in winter, it’s the weather.  Now how about moods.  Have you ever noticed that sometimes your mood swings around randomly, some minutes your emotions are rainy, other times you are like a warm sunny day.  The thing is, your moods affects others, especially your family.  Maybe you can’t control the weather, but you can control your mood.  A bad attitude messes up the others around you and has everyone walking on egg shells.  People really let their moods fly around at home, and end up hurting those they love most.  But God has a different plan.  He asks us to be self controlled, and that to truly love is to lay down our lives for others.  He says to let the joy of the Lord be your strength, and that every day that God makes, which is every day, we should rejoice and be glad.  To rejoice in the Lord always, again I say (in case you missed it) rejoice.  Make an effort today to no longer let moods tell you how to feel, let God tell you how to feel, change the atmosphere of your home to one of fun and love. 

Who Do You Love?

Jesus said in Matthew 5 that if you are giving to God then suddenly remember your brother is upset with you, leave your gift, go be reconciled to your brother, then come back and give.  In Malachi 2:13, 14 we find God is not pleased with the gifts of the people and the reason he states is this “God is acting as the witness between you and the wife of your youth, because you have broken faith her.”  In both these cases our gifts to God are affected by our relationships; one with our brothers and sisters in the Lord, the other with our spouse.  What is God saying here?  Well, He’s telling us how important it is that we get along with each other.  He’s saying, hey you show me you love me when you loving others.  I John 4:20 says it like this, “anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen.”  God just wants us all to get along.  If you got married, then love your spouse, and do it well.  Love your neighbor, love your brother, and in this way you are loving God, and your gifts to Him are like that of Abel who loved, and not of Cain, who did not love.

Rework

I John 3:7 don’t let anyone lead you astray.

Luke 6:39 Jesus asks the question “Can the blind lead the blind?”  Jesus wasn’t talking about people physically blind, he was talking about those who had no idea where to go.  When you don’t know where to go, you stumble through the darkeness of life, and probably stub your toe something terrible.  So who is leading you?  Are you following?  Is it a good thing?  The people we hang out with are an influence in our lives, no question.  Some of that influence may be bad.  Okay, now who are you leading?  And where are you going?  Psalms 61:2 says “lead me to the rock that is higher than I”.  God wants to be your leader, and where is He leading you?  Well, He will lead you to somewhere better than where you are.  For the Israelites he was leading them to the Promised Land.  He is leading you to the rock, and it is not down hill, but up the mountain, it’s higher, it’s not necessarily the easy way, it might take some effort, there may be a wilderness to cross, you may even wonder sometimes if it’s the right way, but if you are following God, it is always the right way.