Today in my prayer class we talked briefly about Luke 9:23-25:
"If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. (v. 23)"
Jesus does not hold back on the requirements of coming after him: we must deny ourselves and take up our crosses and follow him. None of these are easy. The cross is an instrument of execution. There is nothing easy about this statement. Living it out will lead to hardships in this life (even loss of life) that could be avoided if we just ignored Christ's words. But if we ignore His words then we ignore what comes next:
"For whoever would save his life will lose it but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it. (v. 24)"
If lived out Biblically, the Christian life will be hard and perilous, but this life is the worst it gets for the Christian. For if we lose our life for Christ's sake we will gain so much more. For the non-Christian, this life is the best they will ever experience. It will never get any better. There is nothing to be envied of the billionaire atheist.
"For what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses or forfeits himself? (v. 25)"
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
Friday, January 16, 2009
No Wrong Steps
I have no idea how many wrong judgments I made today. Hundreds? Probably more. Definitely not less.
I've read that we speak an average of 16,000 words per day (I'm guessing I probably use a few less). Certainly a few hundred of those I used today were ill chosen or timed. And most of them, if not all of them, could have been strung together better to be more accurate, encouraging, and honoring to God.
Each moment of the day I face decisions on how to use my time. Most of the time, I am not thinking of it that way, but almost every minute of my day I have a choice of how to use that minute. I wonder how much time I waste each day. Wasted seconds add up to wasted minutes add up to wasted hours add up to wasted days...I wonder how many days I have wasted in my life (wasted years?).
This analysis of how much of my life I waste is probably not mostly accumulated in the things I do, but in the things I don't. I guess I am looking at life as a constant barrage of moment by moment choices each one with thousands of options which way to go, and rarely if ever do I choose the most perfect, excellent, wise and right route.
On the other hand, God does. As far as we can discuss the choices of God without getting into heady discussions that are way over my tiny head, it seems that when the Bible speaks of the righteousness of God, this is in part what it refers to. He takes no wrong steps. He always does what is right. Out of the billions of ways things could be, He chooses the best way. Out of the infinite amount of things He could have said, He said the best thing. Out of the boundless times He could act, He acts at precisely the right moment, to the nanosecond and beyond. He makes all the right judgments and never a wrong one.
I hope to continue thinking on this one, but just wanted to record some preliminary thoughts.
I've read that we speak an average of 16,000 words per day (I'm guessing I probably use a few less). Certainly a few hundred of those I used today were ill chosen or timed. And most of them, if not all of them, could have been strung together better to be more accurate, encouraging, and honoring to God.
Each moment of the day I face decisions on how to use my time. Most of the time, I am not thinking of it that way, but almost every minute of my day I have a choice of how to use that minute. I wonder how much time I waste each day. Wasted seconds add up to wasted minutes add up to wasted hours add up to wasted days...I wonder how many days I have wasted in my life (wasted years?).
This analysis of how much of my life I waste is probably not mostly accumulated in the things I do, but in the things I don't. I guess I am looking at life as a constant barrage of moment by moment choices each one with thousands of options which way to go, and rarely if ever do I choose the most perfect, excellent, wise and right route.
On the other hand, God does. As far as we can discuss the choices of God without getting into heady discussions that are way over my tiny head, it seems that when the Bible speaks of the righteousness of God, this is in part what it refers to. He takes no wrong steps. He always does what is right. Out of the billions of ways things could be, He chooses the best way. Out of the infinite amount of things He could have said, He said the best thing. Out of the boundless times He could act, He acts at precisely the right moment, to the nanosecond and beyond. He makes all the right judgments and never a wrong one.
I hope to continue thinking on this one, but just wanted to record some preliminary thoughts.
"God is a righteous judge and a God who feels indignation every day."
-Psalm 7:11
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