I think I will try to tell some stories and relationship to our serving the Lord. I do feel led to get all to think about what your relationship is with God and what you are doing in service or disservice to Him.
#1. There is a crisis of grand proportions in the spiritual house of God today. The moral fiber of our world has eroded. Greed, idolatry, and pleasure are the gods of our day. And it is no different in the Body of Christ.
The prophet Haggai wrote about a people who had lost concern for the need to build God's house because they were so focused on their own worldly needs. It is a dangerous place to get with God. When our world begins to focus around increasing our pleasure, building bigger and better homes, and failing to make what is important to God important in our own lives, this should be a warning to us.
Jesus entered the temple area and drove out all who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the moneychangers and the benches of those selling doves. "It is written," He said to them, " 'My house will be called a house of prayer,' but you are making it a 'den of robbers' " (Matthew. 21:12-13).
Jesus came into Jerusalem and found the workplace believers buying and selling in the temple. As far as they knew, this was an acceptable practice in their day. Their fathers did it, and now they were doing it. It was business as usual. Jesus got angry, turned over the tables, and said that His house was a house of prayer. He found the workplace believers of the day seeing His house as a place for profit, not prayer. They had stepped into a place of complacency that was not acceptable to the Lord. When we begin to blend in with the moral condition of an ungodly world, we begin losing God's perspective on life.
It is easy to begin blending in with our culture and to accept what is being modeled by the ungodly. God called us to be salt in a world that needs much salt. "You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled by men" (Mt. 5:13). Each of us must ask ourselves if we have lost our salt. Are we having an impact on our world? Or is our world having an impact on us? Ask God to give you a vision for how you can be salt to your world today.
#2.Have you ever felt that serving God had little reward and the ungodly seemed actually to be more blessed than you? This is what the people of God felt. God heard their cry and responded through the prophet Malachi to explain God's view on this matter.
Then those who feared the Lord talked with each other, and the Lord listened and heard. A scroll of remembrance was written in His presence concerning those who feared the Lord and honored His name. "They will be Mine," says the Lord Almighty, "in the day when I take up My treasured possession. I will spare them, just as in compassion a man spares his son who serves him. And you will again see the distinction between the righteous and the wicked, between those who serve God and those who do not" (Malachi 3:16-18).
Notice that after the people complained about this, they began to talk to each other, and the Lord listened and heard. God had been taking note of those who were serving Him and honoring Him. There is a day coming in which God will honor His "treasured possessions." We will see that there is a distinction between the righteous and the wicked on that day when "the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its wings. And you will go out and leap like calves released from the stall" (Mal. 4:2). What a beautiful picture of what we will feel like on that day.
God rewards faithful obedience. It often requires patience, suffering, and perseverance. Be of good cheer; He will reward you if you faint not.
( Excerpts from Prime Time with God)
What do we see in these messages? How do they relate to you today?
6 comments:
A few responses that came to me as I read what you've written:
* The one group that Jesus was consistently hard on were the religious people.
* I want to be out around and among unbelievers, loving them, being a friend, sharing the gospel - but I don't want to let them influence me in areas of priorities and values.
*Sometimes I've seen myself become acclimatized to values and priorities in our culture that are not what God would want. I'm grateful for the conviction of the Holy Spirit and that 1 John 1:9 promises me that if I confess my sin, God will forgive me and make me clean. I'm grateful that God continues to work in the life of a person like me who repeatedly falls down, and who He repeatedly helps up.
* I'm reminded of a favorite scripture in Galatians 6:9 - Let us not lose heart in doing good, for in due time we will reap if we do not grow weary.
Tracy:
I would think Jesus had to be hard on them for they were following what the priest touted as the law and not what God had stated.
All that we can do as Christian Gentiles is to be led by the Holy Spirit as to what God wants for us. And that means a close loving relationship with Him in our prayers and worship.
I agree on both points. God's people are so worried about prosperity and "getting blessed" that they forget that it's all about Him (not us) We were created by Him, for Him. And on point #2, I'm afraid that that kind of thinking crops into my head sometimes. But when I am feeling like the wicked are more blessed than I, I read Psalm 73. The psalmist felt the same way, but he got his perspective back in line by the last verse. it goes like this:But it is good for me to draw near to God; I have put all my trust in the Lord God, that I may declare all thy works. God bless you photogr
I am a little concerned that Jesus wouldn't even come to the temple these days. :-)
Sure, that church needs help, but it is God's chosen vessel for spreading the Gospel.
That said, I guess it's time we stopped going to church and started being the church.
David:
Point well taken about being the church but when is it going to happen?
Jack:
As I have read, our wealth is stored up in God's Kingdom waiting for us based on our serving Him on earth. Wealth of material things here on earth is nothing compared to what awaits us in Gods Kingdom.
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