Posts Tagged ‘ Orthopraxy ’
Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth.
Colossians 3:2, ESV
It is impossible to rightly serve God if we are not focused on Him. Loving others will fall apart if we are not rightly loving Him, even if we are trying to help others but stay focused solely on physical needs and worldly issues.
Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.
1 Corinthians 15:58, ESV
May we never say “Do as I say, not as I do” as Christians.
We have the Word of God, but our faith is so much more than words. We must interact with our world in real and physical ways! And He will empower, strengthen, and move through us!
I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will counsel you with my eye upon you.
Psalm 32:8, ESV
God desires to teach us in how to live, and He has given us to primary sources:
Listen to both to live rightly.
For the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous, and his ears are open to their prayer. But the face of the Lord is against those who do evil.
1 Peter 3:12, ESV
What you do matters.
What you think matters.
If you are consistently thinking impure and evil thoughts, if you are doing what you know God does not approve of, do not expect Him to answer your prayers nor rescue you from challenges.
Odds are, you created those challenges.
Get yourself over to Proverbial Thought for some wise exposition!
I will keep this short, and hopefully you get the point!
I used to regularly update an online journal called DanDantheGodman, which was a nickname given to me during my year working for McDonald’s. My tagline for this journal was “Running around in circles with everywhere to go.” I eventually used it on my MySpace page, as well (another thing I rarely ever think about let alone visit or update).
As a Christian, it occurred to me that it might not be the best tagline.
At the same time, it occurred to me that might be the best tagline to describe much of Western Christianity (though by no means all!)
Think about it for a moment:
The Church is supposed to fulfill the two-fold mission issued by our Lord.
Yet, we see so many churches, congregations, and ministries that seem to promote taking care of ourselves more than taking care of others. Promoting this means they are teaching self-preservation and gratification rather than the things that Jesus taught.
In other words, many Christians in our culture are “running around in circles with everywhere to go.”
Put another way, many Christians are not putting their faith into action. They attend their churches, give donations and tithes, and attend small groups, but they rarely if ever teach the Word of God or reach out to non-Christians.
Are you running around in circles or stepping outside of your circle?
20 You foolish person, do you want evidence that faith without deeds is useless? 21 Was not our father Abraham considered righteous for what he did when he offered his son Isaac on the altar? 22 You see that his faith and his actions were working together, and his faith was made complete by what he did. 23 And the scripture was fulfilled that says, “Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness,” and he was called God’s friend. 24 You see that a person is considered righteous by what they do and not by faith alone.
James 2:20-24, NIV
Act on the call of wisdom and head over to Proverbial Thought!
Lepers have always been cut off from society. Almost no one wants to touch them, and they can become social outcasts from the idea that they can transmit their disease to others.
Jesus was the only one who would touch lepers. His touch could make them whole and able to rejoin society. The change He made in them then changed how people thought and acted.
In many churches today, there is another form of leprosy that must be healed. We are a people who need to have our thoughts and actions changed.
We must turn to Jesus for this healing and change!
______
leprosy
leprosy
numbness
have we become a nation
a people
a world
of emotional leprosy
“I don’t feel God in my life”
“I got nothing from the service”
“I cannot love anymore”
we cannot seem to feel
we cannot seem to feel God
are we emotional lepers
there is a cure
we must cut ourselves deep
we must cut ourselves to get clean
this is by doing
stop reading about acts of faith
act
stop wishing for miracles
be the miracle
stop praying for the world to change
change
and change the world the Bible
do Jesus
do God
and
heaven will come down
God will move in power
your leprosy will be healed
Get a taste of wisdom over at Proverbial Thought!
Big and Newborn Bros
At my wedding 2.6 years ago
Yesterday was my little brother’s 28th birthday. I still think of him as a junior higher, perhaps 13 or 14 years old. That is now half his age! I can barely believe it!
This past Thursday, January 9, was my 14th Re-birthday. It was 14 years ago I first knelt down and declared I believed Jesus is my Savior and the Son of God. I was only a couple years older than how I still view my brother when that happened.
This all got me to thinking about something.
Some friends and I had a conversation about conversations a while back. It was all about the exclamation “Really?!”
The full context of this conversation was focused around what one of us had heard about friendly conversation and this one word. Asking this word after a friend or loved one makes a statement is the same as casting doubt on the validity of the statement.
It is one thing if the conversation goes like this:
“I just won a million dollars!”
“Wow! Really?!”
Winning a million dollars is not a typical occurrence in daily life. Shock and amazement with a little bit of doubt makes sense.
But when the conversation is more like this:
“I lost my phone today.”
“Really?”
In this context, it can said as any of the following:
And many others.
The underlying theme is that saying “Really?!” denotes disbelief or mistrust, or at worst it denotes aggression or animosity. And to be fair, most of us use the term in such a way as to say “Tell me more!”
You are probably thinking about how often you say “Really?!” to people, and, if you are like we were, you are attempting to justify your use of the term and explain that you usually mean “Tell me more!”
Let me then ask you this, Christian believer: How do you live your life?
Do go around claiming your connection to your church and as a good Christian, yet those outside the Church look at your example of love and light and think “Is this person really ‘blameless and innocent, [a child] of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world, 16, ESV)
Put another way, do they look at your life and say “Really?! That’s a Christ follower?” And they want to stay away from God because of your example?
Or do you go around sharing the good news of Christ as you live out His commands of love and sacrifice? Do those outside the Church look at your example of love and light and think, “Really?! This kind of thing is true? Tell me more!”
Examine yourselves, to see whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Or do you not realize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you?—unless indeed you fail to meet the test! I hope you will find out that we have not failed the test.
2 Corinthians 13:5-6, ESV
