Sunday 28 February 2010

Appointed Duties

I was reading through Numbers today and something caught my attention. In chapter 4, the duties of the Levites were being defined specifically for each family—Aaron and his sons who were the priests, the sons of Kohath, the sons of Gershon, and the sons of Merari. What I found interested was throughout the chapter, the Lord specifically assigned duties for each family so that everyone had a roll and no job was left undone.

Often as Christians we can become jealous about what the Lord is doing through the life of another believer. We want to have their life and be assigned their duties rather than being faithful with what the Lord has entrusted to us. On the flip side, we can wonder why other Christians aren’t helping us with our work. They seem to only be concerned with what they are doing that they don’t stop to offer to help us.

My friends, the Lord has given us each a specific task for His kingdom…one that we are designed to do, that no one else can do. It would be slighting the Lord if we thought we knew better than He, thinking we would be better suited for a different task or someone else for ours.

Throughout the chapter God says to “appoint each of them to his service and his task,” “appoint to them all their tasks as their duty,” “assign to each man by name the items he must carry,” “each according to his service and according to his task.” Everyone had a job to be performed “to do the work of service and the work of bearing burdens” in order that the tabernacle, the place of God’s dwelling, might be taken care of.

We, as Christians, are the dwelling of the Holy Spirit, and the church His body. If we are too busy striving to be something we’re not, as Paul says in 1 Cor. 12:14-27, we will be divided as a body and accomplish nothing, which is exactly what the enemy, Satan, wishes to accomplish in the church. Run your race in your lane. Let us stop quarreling and complaining, but be faithful to the end with what the Lord has given us that He might say, “Well done, good and faithful servant.”

Sunday 21 February 2010

Discipleship


I’ve been reading a book by G. Campbell Morgan entitled “Discipleship”. Last night I came across a passage that struck me. The truths and lessons we have been taught as disciples of Jesus should not be mere theories committed to memory, but should be displayed in our lives as principles. “The teaching of Jesus is cumulative and progressive.” We cannot move on to learn other lessons or skip to the end until we have applied what we’ve already been taught. You can’t skip steps because it all builds upon each other. I was reminded of a couple verses as well.

2 Timothy 3:14—“But you must continue in the things which you have learned and been assured of.”
Psalm 11:3—“If the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do?”

We must continue to persist steadily because the lessons the Lord is teaching us now are for our good and are building the foundation for our future. Though we may not understand it, God knows, and is using it for our advancement in His discipleship program.

Sunday 14 February 2010

Something To Consider

1 Samuel 12:24 – “Only fear the LORD, and serve Him in truth with all your heart; for consider what great things He has done for you.”

In the context of this verse, the nation of Israel was afraid the Lord would destroy them because of their disobedience to Him. However the Lord encouraged the people through the prophet Samuel and pointed them back in the right direction. They were not to go after empty things, but to follow the Lord, to “fear the Lord, and serve Him in truth will all your heart.” What was their motivation to serve the Lord rather than to gain alliances “prosperity” from the people already in the land? Why should they serve Him with all their heart? Simply because of what the Lord had done for them. He had created their nation, delivered them from Egypt, brought them through the desert, given them victory over their enemies, and had shown mercy to the people despite their sin. He had been faithful in the lives of their forefathers and would be faithful forever. Because of this, the least these people could do was to follow the Lord.

But what about me? What about you? Most likely, we have never wandered through a country without stopping at a place we call “home”; have never been made a slave, forced to work in the mud pits and make bricks; have never spent 40 years wandering in a desert, fed daily by miracle bread that dropped from the sky each morning. But maybe, some seasons in your life have felt like that. You don’t know what you’re doing with your life; you seem to be surrounded by impossibilities on every side; you’re stuck in a place where it seems easier to give up and go back to the life you knew before Christ, or worse yet, you only display your faith around other Christians but hide your light when you’re with everyone else at work or school or the stores.

Here, we are given the answer. How can we go on in the face of such difficult circumstances? We look to Jesus and what He did for us…”for consider what great things He has done for you.” When you look, truly look, at all that Jesus went through for us in His life on earth and the intense pain and suffering He experienced on the cross, and you realize that HIS motivation was His love for YOU, how can you do anything else but serve Him with all of your heart? When this Christian life becomes a “bore” or seemingly too difficult to carry on, look back at what Jesus did for you. You will be humbled by His great love and sacrifice, and that will be your motivation. May we all remember what great things He has done for us.

Thursday 11 February 2010

Updating

While I'm here visiting the Cate family in Colorado, Carleigh and I decided to update our blogs with fun new backgrounds. Since I changed the layout, I thought it'd be about time to make a new post as well, considering my last post was 4 months ago. However, it's getting late and my brain can think of nothing better to write at this point in time, I'll conclude this small post and try again when I have something better to say. So long for now.