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Friday, October 15, 2010

New commitment

Are you a happy person or a sad person? What kind of disposition would mark you? Happy, sad, joyful, full of life, energetic, complainer, woe is me…You see as Christians we are different. We have a God who is mighty…and Who cares for us; more than we can imagine. But we live here on earth and with all the stuff that comes with it. One of them is called Satan (devil) and yes, he is real. Now what I want us to do, is to look at the book of Job this week, the first chapter. In chapter one we see Satan going before God and God says, “Have you considered My servant Job? For there is no one like him on the earth, a blameless and up right man, fearing God and turning away from evil.” Then Satan answered the Lord, “Does Job fear God for nothing?” “Have you not made a hedge around him and all his house and all that he has…..” He continues telling God, to take away Jobs, let’s call it, wealth and he will curse you (God). So God allows Satan to touch Job’s wealth, which includes his family, which Satan does.
You see Satan is an accuser of God’s people , Rev.12:10. The word there in Job actually means, adversary. Look at what he says of Job; Job only follows you because you bless him and protect him. Then he asks God to take away those blessings. God takes down part of the protection and allows Satan to take away those blessing, wealth. A test/ trial of Job to see if he really follows God. Or maybe God proving to Satan that Job is the real deal. At the end of chapter one Job says this, “ Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked I shall return there. The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.” Yes, Job is the real deal. Now in 2010 are we the real deal? Are you and I the real deal when things are taken away, with held, our life is in turmoil, when we hurt…? Will we bless the Lord in the hard times? Now don’t get me wrong that it’s not a struggle sometimes. Read on and you will see that Job had that struggle, but He did not fall. Sometimes we don’t understand why things happen, bad things, hurtful things…But no matter what comes our way will we continue to bless the Lord and to trust Him? Can we sing that song “Blessed be the name” with a renewed commitment to God? Can we continue to go to church and worship our Lord? Yes we can, we have a great God, worthy of praise.

A little change

A little bit of a change for the start of this years/ season of devotionals ( the title). Sometimes we need change in our lives. To mix things up a bit. That is true of us as Christians. The change that we are talking about is not the same as the world thinks, but the change as God will have for us. There he goes again, you maybe thinking, telling us about changing to be a better husband, father…well yes. But hold on a bit, hear me out on this issue. When we think of change as believers sometimes we only think of the on going work of Jesus, dealing with our sinful habits, ways; our wrong thinking…and yes we need to change in that regard.
The change that I’m talking about here is the one of getting out of a routine that is, same old…We have a schedule and we don’t break it or go out of order. Know I’m not talking about work schedules, school schedules…but the things we do with our free time schedules. Some things we do just characterize us and some times it keeps us from doing different things. Also sometimes we don’t do things because of a so called dislike, it’s takes a little effort, not to sure of the new ground and sometimes because of fear. So what we need to do as men is to not get stuck in the routine of life, we’re we start to be boring. Last week we talked about be excited about going to church and Sunday school. Which is a good routine to get in to. Now as Christians there are a lot of other things we can do also to spice up our Christian life. That is to reach out. What do I mean reach out? That is to do something different. O.K. Let’s just go to a list of things, this will help us with this topic. Go to a Faith groups, Pot luck supper, bible studies, invite a family for dinner, go help a brother, check out the youth ministries or other ministries (you don’t have to join but it’s o.k. to check them out), start doing things with friends….Sometimes we need to stop doing things, for me turn off the t.v. ,there is so much available to us in this modern day. Being a Christian should be fun. So a little change is good as long it is directed toward the good.