Do you and I really shine the light of Christ to those around us? Do others see the difference He has made in our lives? Are we bringing Him glory by how we live and treat others? Let’s not answer too quickly. We can be a little like the Pharisees, seeing all the “good things” we believe we do while we are harsh with our family, dishonoring to our parents, unforgiving, and unkind to those we believe have mistreated us. Maybe we need to look a little closer to see if we are living in light of Christ’s omnipresence and omniscience.
There is also a beautiful prayer to pray for ourselves and others in today’s readings and a description of how God wants us to regard His Word.
While adultery is not the unforgivable sin, the effects of adultery are devastating. Whether someone is the perpetrator or the victim, lives are turned upside-down. Maybe it’s happened to you. If you’re the one who was sinned against, you know those things to be true. But what if you’re the one who committed adultery? Or what if you’re struggling with the temptation now?
It’s so easy to let hypocritical attitudes creep into our hearts and allow ourselves to become religious pretenders. We may look good on the outside, but have hearts full of envy, greed, anger, worry, and self-righteousness. In the process, we lose the joy of our salvation and find ourselves just going through the motions of the Christian life. But there is an even worse danger in being a religious pretender.
Yesterday, I said that the heart of the Bible’s message is simple. But if that’s true, what do we do with some of the puzzling Bible passages and statements made by Jesus and others? Is it possible to better understand them and if so, how?
And speaking of puzzling Bible passages, why would God command such an elaborate system of laws and regulations in the Old Testament? What does all of it have to do with us and the laws of our land?
Have you ever felt like living God’s way is so complicated that you need CliffsNotes for the Bible, some kind of summary of God’s law? As humans, we tend to want God to just give us the bottom line. Tell me what I can and cannot do. Where’s the line? And how close to it can I get and still be in God’s good graces?
And too often Christianity has been made to sound that complicated. The religious leaders of Jesus’ time had certainly made things seem that way. So much so that they had religious lawyers to help interpret all the laws.
But when one of those lawyers asked Jesus for His opinion, He gave a surprising answer.
We all sin every day, but there are some sins that God names as those He hates. One is “hands that shed innocent blood.” With the Supreme Court decision on Roe v. Wade concerning abortion, we have reason to hope that laws can be passed to, at least, limit it. But laws don’t change hearts. There is only one real source of hope. We need to be sure we put our trust there.
Also … do you have someone in your life who is difficult? Maybe it’s your boss, your co-worker, your mother-in-law, or a child you dearly love. Whoever it is (and most of us have someone), how do you think about that relationship and how well do you deal with it?
I hope I’m not the only one who falls so easily into the trap of grumbling and complaining. After all, it seems like such a little thing! And, let’s face it, there are plenty of things to gripe about. Yet, in reality, we’re not just complaining about our circumstances or other people, but against our Sovereign God. We’re called to shine the light into a dark world, but it’s hard to be shining when we’re whining!
So, what should we be doing? And what is the ultimate answer to the things we gripe about?
As January comes to an end and the second month of the year begins, many of us will be examining the goals and resolutions we made just a few weeks ago. We’ll examine our progress (or lack of it) concerning a new diet, exercise plan, or some other goal. If we’re in school, we take examinations to test our proficiency in those subjects. And when it comes to our health, we get numerous examinations and tests to ensure we stay as healthy as we can. But how many of us take the time to examine the most important thing, our spiritual health?
We all want our children to grow up successful in their chosen endeavors and leaders in various areas of life. That might mean being a great mom or dad or in a career or both. But we need to be careful not to focus on success and leadership from a worldly perspective. God’s will in those areas is very clear. I’ve talked about success in other posts but today we’ll look at God’s kind of leadership … servant leadership. And there is a warning here, as well, because when we fail to teach these principles, we set our children up for failure in every area of life.
Have you ever looked around at the lives of others and thought that life just isn’t fair? Maybe because you’ve been treated unfairly in the workplace, in your family, or maybe it seems even by God? What should we remember when we’re tempted with thoughts of “It’s not fair!”?
We’ll also look at how one of the psalmists prayed when he felt like life wasn’t going his way and how pride blinds us to the seriousness and the consequences of our sin.
And finally, we’ll talk about how people today have decided they can make the rules. They can decide what’s right and wrong, what marriage is, when life begins, and what lives are worth protecting. And much of what we see around us are the consequences of that kind of foolish thinking.
