LIVING WISELY

“Be very careful how you live. Do not live like those who are not wise, but live wisely. Use every chance you have for doing good, because these are evil times.”  (Ephesians 5:15-16 NCV)

Life is filled with opportunities -- and obstacles that can prevent you from grabbing hold of them. The secret to making the most of your life lies in making the most of your time.

The first three words of this verse hold the key: be very careful. In the original language, this admonition is much stronger and fuller than what sounds here like a mother’s passing comment to her kids as they head outside. The words describe a way of living -- or “walking” as the Bible often describes it -- that is precise, accurate, and deliberate. It involves both forethought and a heightened sense of awareness. It’s similar to the way you drive a car. You need to be constantly attentive, responding to the ever-changing situations you find yourself in. You swerve to avoid hazards, brake for pedestrians, and follow the rules. Your skill, knowledge, and vigilance help you make wise decisions at a moment’s notice.

To live wisely you need to do the same thing. You need to face each day spiritually alert. You need to recognize evil, so you can avoid it like a dangerous hazard in the road. At the same time, you need to slow down and be on the lookout for opportunities to show love to others and to God -- and to grab hold of those opportunities. The good news is that God is in the car with you. His Spirit will help guide your daily journey toward a life full of well-utilized opportunities. 

-- Adapted from “100 Favorite Bible Verses”

#6282

MOVING BEYOND THE ENTRANCE

“[Christ’s] divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us to His own glory and excellence, by which He has granted to us His precious and very great promises, so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire… For in this way there will be richly provided for you an entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.”  (2 Peter 1:3,4,11 ESV)

We come to Jesus Christ and He does for us what He promised; and the thing works out. To our amazement, it works out. And then we settle down. We have had our own first-hand and irrefutable experience. But, instead of opening the windows to the glory of the sunshine so evidently there, instead of being incited to a hugeness of faith by what Christ has already done for us, we can't believe that there can be anything more, or that even He can work, for us, anything better. That first foretaste satisfies us. And so we camp for life out on the confines of the Kingdom, and never press on to inherit what is there and meant for us. 

-- A. J. Gossip (1873-1954) in “Experience Worketh Hope” [1944] 

#6208

A LOADED QUESTION

“One who was there had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there and learned that he had been in this condition for a long time, He asked him, ‘Do you want to get well?’”  (John 5:5-6 NIV)

It’s a strange thing to ask. A man is severely handicapped and spends his days hanging out at a healing pool. Does he want to get well? Do people at the gym want to get in shape? Would Gilligan wish to disembark the island?

Seems like a silly question -- unless it’s a loaded one. But the longer I serve people as a minister, the more I understand the question Jesus asks here. The answer is not self-evident at all. There are lots of people who like to hang around the waters without actually wishing to be healed. A lot of people come to church but don’t really want God’s help.

People do things for lots of reasons, not always the most obvious ones. They have motives they themselves may not even understand.

So Jesus gets right to the issue: You’ve been stuck in neutral for a while. Do you really want something better? Or have you laid down roots in a place of quiet desperation and low expectations?

-- Kyle Idleman in “The End of Me: When Real Life in the Upside-Down Ways of Jesus Begins”


#4762

THE SACRIFICES OF THANKSGIVING

“Oh that men would praise the LORD for His goodness, and for His wonderful works to the children of men! And let them sacrifice the sacrifices of thanksgiving, and declare His works with rejoicing.”  (Psalm 107:21-22)

It has been said that talk is cheap. We thank the Lord and we say “Lord, we're so thankful, we're so grateful for all that you've done for us.” Well, do you know what we need to do? We need to turn Thanksgiving into Thanks-living. That is, to offer to God the sacrifices of thanksgiving.

Now, if we're thankful it really ought to show in our lives. And by the way, I don't believe that there's any other sin quite like the sin of ingratitude… The poet Milton, the blind poet, said that a person with an ungrateful spirit only has one vice, he said because all of the rest of his vices are virtues compared to ingratitude. Every other sin is a virtue compared to the sin of ingratitude.

How terrible not to be grateful to God, and yet in America all around we can find those who are grumbly hateful rather than humbly grateful. Well, how can we translate our Thanksgiving today into Thanks-living? We're to offer to God what the Bible calls the "sacrifices of thanksgiving."

-- Adrian Rogers in “Love Worth Finding”

#4721

ABUNDANT LIVING

One missionary who worked in the island nation of Haiti for many years put his finger on the distinction between life and the sad absence of significance. He was talking with a visiting pastor about his agricultural school and vocational training ministry. “You are doing a great work by helping people survive in these difficult circumstances,” the pastor observed.

“Survive?” the missionary responded with a wry smile. “Why, it doesn’t take anything to survive. The challenge of the gospel is to teach people how to thrive!”

Jesus’ ministry was -- and is -- all about the difference between scraping out an existence and living in the fullness that is always God’s intention. “I came that they may have life, “Jesus said, “and have it abundantly.” (John 10:10)

-- Derek Maul in “Get Real: A Spiritual Journey for Men”


#4652

BIBLICAL WISDOM

Many people think that what's written in the Bible has mostly to do with getting people into heaven -- getting right with God, saving their eternal souls.  It does have to do with that, of course, but not mostly.  It is equally concerned with living on this earth -- living well, living in robust sanity.  In our Scriptures, heaven is not the primary concern, to which earth is a tag-along afterthought.  "On earth as it is in heaven" is Jesus' prayer.

"Wisdom" is the biblical term for this on-earth-as-it-is-in-heaven everyday living.  Wisdom is the art of living skillfully in whatever actual conditions we find ourselves.  It has virtually nothing to do with information as such, with knowledge as such.  A college degree is no certification of wisdom -- nor is it primarily concerned with keeping us out of moral mud puddles, although it does have a profound moral effect upon us.

Wisdom has to do with becoming skillful in honoring our parents and raising our children, handling our money and conducting our sexual lives, going to work and exercising leadership, using words well and treating friends kindly, eating and drinking healthily, cultivating emotions within ourselves and attitudes toward others that make for peace.  Threaded through all these items is the insistence that the way we think of and respond to God is the most practical thing we do.  In matters of everyday practicality, nothing, absolutely nothing, takes precedence over God.

-- Eugene Peterson in “The Message”


#4089

GOD’S LAWS FOR LIVING

“Lord, You have given us Your laws and told us to obey them faithfully. How I hope that I shall be faithful in keeping Your instructions! If I pay attention to all Your commands, then I will not be put to shame.”  (Psalm 119:4-6 GNT)

There are times when it can be so tempting to 'bend' the rules in certain cases, especially if we don't think we'll get caught. But when we resist the temptation and follow God's laws for living, we'll invariably see that God has just spared us from needless grief.

-- Matt Donnelly,  ChristianityToday.com


#4033