Hello everyone!
Thank you for your continued patience as I have worked through some personal stuff. It's starting to clear up my schedule now so I will, hopefully, be able to churn out more regular content in addition to my "Off the Scale" series.
As already mentioned, I have some exciting projects coming up that I'll be incorporating into this blog, having decided not to create a new one. Instead I will be focusing upon polishing this to a standard that is befitting of my blog. It's going to be a slow process so further patience will be required whilst I change things around.
But there will be no new web address to memorise for my output, at least for the foreseeable future...
"Do This and You Will Live"
Just then an expert in the law stood up to test Him, saying, “Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” “What is written in the law?” He asked him. “How do you read it?” He answered: "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbour as yourself." “You’ve answered correctly,” He told him. “Do this and you will live.”
Luke 10:25-28 (HCSB)
"Do this and you will live..." What a strong statement!
Six words that can define someone by their actions or lack thereof.
If there is one thing I cannot abide by, it is hypocrisy; the art of saying one thing and contradicting it with words and/or actions.
In getting the religious expert to answer the question of how he interprets God's law is a good way to reveal, by what he says, the true state of what he is really believing.
This is where the green shows up which way the rub is, in my opinion, because we can profess to be Christians but unless our lives make known what we stand for and against, we are like "a clanging gong", just like Paul refers to in 1 Corinthians 13:1.
Unless our actions are governed by love, we will be looking for another source. This is why, I believe, Jesus told the man "do this and you will live" because the more we claim we love God, the more that can be tested and proven as true by our actions towards one another. If we are mean to our family, friends and the people we meet on the street, are we demonstrating God's love?
Hardly.
Let Love Shine Amongst Us
In case you were wondering, I have been undergoing quite a dramatic transformation at the hands of Almighty God over the festive period as I've come to realise that it really doesn't matter to me anymore if people want to abandon me. I am living in the era of "cero miedo" or "zero fear" this year, so I am looking forward by making the most of each and every day.
It doesn't mean I get it right every day because just this week I was feeling really rubbish about so many things. But that was because I was not censuring my thought life as I'm instructed to (Colossians 3:1-3), so there's no one else to blame here.
The whole act of claiming to represent Christ and yet failing to back that up by my words and my actions is something that is absolutely abhorrent to me.
I think back to the sacrifice Jesus made for me, for you, for everyone, and as the hymn goes "I scarce can take it in". For me to not be living as I claim to live is a challenge I face, and fail at, every single day. Yet my heart is in the right place.
This is a song I try to remind myself of when I'm feeling that hypocrisy taking control over my thoughts, my words and my actions... the King is among us.
Sure, people can decry that as false nonsense because they cannot see Jesus. This is where His people come in because if we are to live as we claim to profess then when people see us they will see the hands, the feet, the eyes of Jesus in our actions and in our words.
My aim, as I'm pretty sure I've already mentioned before, is to make Christ known by being the best possible version of myself that I can become to show people that God can use a broken down, anxious, often depressed, individual to do amazing things.
I'm not perfect by any stretch of the imagination, as I'm pretty sure my blog proves. But that's just me, wearing my heart on my sleeve with a view to showing people that there is always another way to live your life. Especially if the way you've been living it just hasn't been working up until this point.
Final Thought
If even any degree of this content has resonated with you, then maybe you can consider coming to Jesus today, to see what a difference He can make in your life. All I can do is to show you what following Him with my heart, body and soul looks like for me by what I say and what I do.
Try this: -
"Dear Jesus, I'm not sure how to do this, so I'm just going to be blunt; the way I've been living my life just hasn't been working for me. Can I try things your way today? Amen."
Your words don't have to be fancy, they don't have to be fresh, all that is required of you is as found in Romans 10:9: -
If you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.
I'm not forcing you to surrender your life to Christ today. I'm just giving you an option if what you've been doing, or the way you have been living just hasn't been working lately.
Maybe it's time to try life lived another way.
Until next time.
===TLP===
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