Honoring God With Our Lives
Ξ September 17th, 2007 | → Comments Off | ∇ Christian Living, Family, Growing In The Lord, New Christians |
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The subject of honoring God came up recently in my prayer and Bible study time. What does it take to honor God anyway? First, those who wish to honor God will accept His Son, Jesus, who died on the cross for them by asking Him into their hearts after asking forgiveness for their sins. Then, it follows that to go back to the old life doesn’t make a whole lot of sense because if they have asked for the forgiveness, then it makes more sense to change the lifestyle.
When I got into all this, the scripture about presenting our bodies as a living sacrifice came to mind.
(Rom 12:1) I beseech you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God to present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, pleasing to God, which is your reasonable service.
Now, if we need to do that, it makes sense that we would want to do everything we can to honor God. Going back to an old lifestyle seems to be counter productive. Heading forward means to be doing those things pleasing to God. But how can I give back to a Lord Who is not seen, who has everything? It’s a good question and one that I struggled with for many years. When the answer came to me, it was too simple. Everything we do should be to please God. Everything!
But all I do is sweep the church and pick up garbage. If that’s your job, do that to honor God. How? Well, when we were kids, we used to try to get by with doing just the smallest amount of our work as we could. It was sort of to get away with it and sort of because we were lazy and didn’t want to do the whole thing. It really did not dawn on us that we were spending more time avoiding the situation than it would have taken to simply do whatever IT was. Like, cleaning my room was something I hated doing and avoided it like the plague. The problem was that my room could actually be fixed in about 20 minutes, give or take a couple of minutes. But I thought it should take hours, so instead of cleaning my room, I read comic books in my closet.
As I grew up, I still wanted to avoid things like the dishes and dusting, ironing my Dad’s shirts for work. Those were tasks that I got handed to me because I was out of school in the summer time and Mom and Dad both worked. I was 16 and didn’t want to do that stuff. So, I avoided it until the last minute. It really only took a portion of a day and I could have spread it out over a couple of days but I wanted to avoid it. Such silliness.
If we are to present our bodies as a living sacrifice, then we should do all things to honor God. If I had known to just do the work to honor God, it would have taken a few moments of my time but it would have been done to the best of my abilities. THAT is what honors God. Willingness to to do the work and do it to the best of our abilities. When we grumble and complain about what we do to earn our wages, that does not honor God. In fact, it’s counter to that. If we complain about the co-workers or the boss, we are not honoring God regardless of what they are doing to us.
So, today and everyday, make the choice of honoring God with your lives by going to work and do the best job ever. If that means going the extra mile, that’s what it means. Doing things to the best of your abilities does not take that much longer and the reward is great, whether you see it here or with God. Take the time to enjoy what you do. If the job is a drudge and you hate it, either change jobs or pray while you work at the one you have. I have had jobs I hated but when I prayed while I worked, everything seemed to work better, be brighter and eventually I was able to have the job I loved.
Today is the day that God has made. We will rejoice and be glad in it!!
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