“—-endure hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ.”–2 Timothy 2:3 You don’t have to be a Christian very long before you realize that the Christian life is a battle-ground rather than a play-ground! We are in a spiritual warfare (Ephesians 6:12) and the fight is fierce and non-stop. We fight or we fail. I’ve been reading a summary of “The Art of War”, by Sun Tzu. It was recommended to me by my barber friend and I find it very interesting. It was written in the 6th century BC and is considered the definitive work on military strategies and tatics. I’m sure no expert on warfare, but I am very much aware of the fact that our nation and Christianity are under attack. The scary thing is that this isn’t obvious to most people. They are like the proverbial ostrich with its head in the sand. Sad indeed! There is no greater joy than being a Christian, but that doesn’t mean it is all fun and games. To turn the church into a fun house is a big mistake. Pretending all is well doesn’t change anything for the better. We are at war and the sooner we wake up to that fact the better. There is no reason why we should be surprised or confused about this. We need not be ignorant of Satan’s devices (2 Cor. 2:11) and we have all the armor we need (Eph. 6:11-18) to be victorious, but we must awaken to the danger and get involved in the fray. We are not called to just sit back and take it, but rather to be pro-active. It’s time for folks to wake-up, get-up, and get going; to stop playing church and start getting serious about their responsibilities. We are on a God-given mission and the enemy is doing all he can to stop us. To be successful we must take up “the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God”(Eph. 6:17) and get in the battle. Regardless of the difficulties involved, we are called to “endure hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ.” We must fight or fail! He who is fully surrendered to the Lord will never surrender to the enemy!
THE ONE CONSTANT
Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever. –Hebrews 13:8
When American author Lloyd C. Douglas was a university student, he lived in a boarding house. Downstairs on the first floor was a retired music teacher who lived in a small apartment.
Every morning, Douglas claimed they went through the same ritual. He would come down the steps, open the old man’s door, and ask, “Well, what’s the news?”
The old man would pick up his tuning fork, tap it on the side of his wheelchair, and say, “That’s Middle C! It was Middle C yesterday; it will be Middle C tomorrow; it will be Middle C a thousand years from now. The tenor upstairs sings flat, the piano across the hall is out of tune, but my friend, that is Middle C!”
The old man had discovered one thing in his life upon which he could always depend-Middle C. For Christians, the one constant and absolute in this life, of which there is no shadow of changing, is Jesus Christ. —– God sent His Son to die on the cross so that we might have eternal life with Him. He made a promise, and He kept it.
Because of this, we can rest assured that God will never change. He is ever-present when trouble comes barreling in. He is all-powerful to do exactly as He has promised. And He is all-knowing, and we should never worry because He is in control. He is the same “yesterday and today and forever.”(From Senior Living)
GOD WANTS OUR BEST
And whatsoever ye do, do it heartily, as unto the Lord, and not unto men.–Colossians 3:23
Christ never asks for anything we cannot do.
But let us not forget that He always does expect and require of each of us the best we can do. The faithfulness Christ wants and approves implies the doing of all our work, our business, our trade, our daily toil, as well as we can. Let no one think that religion does not apply to private life. It applies to the way you do your most common work just as readily as to your praying and keeping of the commandments. Whatever your duty is, you cannot be altogether faithful to God unless you do your best. To slur any task is to do God’s work badly; to neglect it is to rob God. The universe is not quite complete without your work well done, however small that work may be.
-J. R. Miller
TWO VIEWS OF FISHING
Sometimes there are effects of our influence that we may never know. G. Brook Adams kept a diary from his boyhood. One special day when he was eight years old, he wrote in his diary, “Went fishing with my father; the most glorious day of my life.” Throughout the next 40 years of his life he never forgot that day he went fishing with his father, he made repeated references to it in his diary, commenting on the influence of that day on his life.
Brook’s father was an important man; he was Charles Francis Adams, the U.S. ambassador to Great Britain under the Lincoln administration. Interestingly, he too made a note in his diary about the fishing trip. He wrote simply, “Went fishing with my son; a day wasted.”
Of course the day was not wasted; its value may well have proved to make it one of the most well-spent days in his life. No one can measure the influence of a man on his children, and that is all the more reason to take the job and its responsibilities seriously.
Someone has written, “last night my little boy confessed to me some childish wrong; and kneeling at my knee, he prayed with tears, ‘O Lord, make me a man like Daddy-wise and strong. I know you can.’ Then while he slept, I knelt beside his bed, confessed my sins and prayed with low-bowed head, ‘O God, make me a child like my child here; pure, guileless, trusting thee with faith sincere.’ “—copied
What kind of a father are you?
GODLY CONTENTMENT
Contentment is never the result of multiplying riches, increasing pleasures, or gaining fame. All these only incite discontent, for when one obtains them, he finds he still is not satisfied. Contentment does not depend upon things on the outside, but results from conditions on the inside! Paul had suffered more for the sake of Christ than probably anyone else (2 Cor. 11:23-28); yet this is the man who says, “I am content.” The apostle was able to interpret all the experiences of life in terms of God’s will for his eternal good (Rom. 8:28). Paul did not come to this happy philosophy of life in a moment. He says, “I have learned . . . to be content.” Aspiring to be what we are not, or grasping after riches which elude us, is not the way to happiness. We must rather do our very best with God’s help to accomplish our life’s task with the talents and opportunities He presents.
In his famous lecture on “Clocks and Watches,” Dr. Joseph Parker related the following story: A little watch, delicately strung, was dissatisfied with its restricted sphere of influence in a lady’s pocket. It envied the position of Big Ben, the great tower clock. One day as it passed with her ladyship over London’s Westminster Bridge, the tiny watch exclaimed, “I wish I could go up there! I could then serve multitudes, instead of just one individual.” “You shall have your opportunity, small watch,” she said. The lecturer then dramatically described how the pocket timepiece was drawn up the side of the mammoth tower by a slender thread. When it reached the top, it was completely lost to view. In his dramatic way, Dr. Parker concluded his lecture by exclaiming, “Its elevation had become its annihilation!”
Pray that you too may not lose the small influence you now have for Christ by coveting something larger for which you are not equipped, and which God constantly refuses you in His love.
Discontent makes rich men poor, while contentment makes poor men rich (From Our Daily Bread)