Saturday, December 10, 2011

What Jesus Are People Seeing In You?

Have you thought much about what you are going to do today? Saturday's are great for that, the ability to make up your own agenda for the day. Have you thought who you are going to do it for? Odd question, I know, but consider it for a moment. "Who are you going to live for today?" is a question that has the potential to re-shape our day.

We are often the only representation of Jesus in people's lives. They don't read the Bible, go to church or follow Christian blogs. They don't sit around discussing God with their friends and most likely their family is not Christian either. So that leaves you. How does that make you feel?

What we say, what we do, how we act, the attitude we have all reflect on who Jesus is. I wish we could all represent him perfectly but we can at least deal with the things that are in our control. We can make choices about the words we speak, the attitude we have, the places we go. But most importantly, we can do the right thing when we mess up. When we get angry, say the wrong thing, take the wrong action, hurt someone because of it, we can turn around and apologize. We can seek forgiveness and vice versa if a friend hurts us. Forgiveness and reconciliation speak with a mega phone who God is and what he has done for us. You can live an example of that today.

We also need to follow through on what we testify about God. We tell people we love him and trust him but then when we are in a tough situation we panic, we become fearful, we worry. Where is our testimony then? We need to make sure that our actions can measure up to our words or we are taking away from the glory of God. There was an important man in the Bible who had to transport the gold and jewelry for God's temple. Normally he would have asked the king for guards to go with him, to protect him, but this was God's stuff and if he didn't think God could protect it then he wasn't much of a God. He said:

I was ashamed to ask the king for soldiers and horsemen to protect us from enemies on the road, because we had told the king, “The gracious hand of our God is on everyone who looks to him, but his great anger is against all who forsake him.” Ezra 8:22

It is too bad more of us do not consider the shame of saying one thing but then doing another. If we have testified about the great love of our Father we need to live today showing that we actually believe it. If you have told people about his love then live today in the truth of that love. If you have told others to trust God then you need to live a life of trust today. If you have told people about God's forgiveness you need to live a life of forgiveness, not holding anything against anyone.

It is a great day today but let's live it to give Jesus the glory and not take it from him. Let's live this day for Jesus. Stay strong and be courageous in all you do. We serve a mighty God who loves us because we belong to him. Let the world see it!

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