It is to the best of my knowledge that God expects more out of us. We go from one day to the next giving God only a few hours on Sunday and one or two on Wednesday. It is a continuous cycle that repeats weekly to form what eventually becomes our life. Then one day we will come to a place where we are face to face with our creator and He will judge us based on what we have done for Him. (This article is in no way trying to persuade that good works lead to salvation.)
When you come to this point, what will you be able to say in your defense? Can you say to God that you have you lived your life for Him each and every day since the day of your conversion and you have made many sacrifices in order that you could live for him. And then He asks you “what have you actually done for me?” You answer that you attended church every Sunday giving Him praise; through the week you would pray for those that were lost and I read the Bible and even went deeper to learn about you through reading devotionals. I raised two fine sons and one of them even went into the ministry as a Wesleyan pastor.
My question to you today is, “is doing this enough?” Sure I would say to anyone that does this that they would get to experience eternity in heaven. However, we should be doing more.
In Matthew 25 we read about the sheep and the goats. The sheep will eventually go to heaven but the goats will be left out. In verse 34 “the King will say… ‘Come you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance… For I was hungry and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.” Skipping down to verse 40, we read “I tell you the truth whatever you did for the least of these you did for me.”
Doing devotionals are a nice thing. They continue our growth in the Lord. But are we really learning to put these things to use for the Lord? If we are only doing this to grow in knowledge then we as Christians are missing the point. We need to get outside the church to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, help the sick and build relationships with those in prison. This way we can live the way Christ wants us to. If we do this we will live out the two greatest commandments given to us in Matthew 22:37-39. “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself.” Everyone has a neighbor and our neighbors have needs. For some it is physical and for others it is mental but when it comes down to it they still need Christ. Are we doing enough so that they might experience Christ’s love through our actions? Are we doing enough so everyone might hear about what Christ’s actions did for them when he died on the cross? Are we doing enough so everyone else can spend eternity in heaven with us? Are we doing enough?
No comments:
Post a Comment