While my life is nothing like Job's was, I have had my share of challenges. In all of it over the last several years I am asking myself several questions including: what is God's will in all this, am I glorifying God, and am I changing everyday into the person God desires me to be. In a nutshell am I experiencing God or more precisely am I finding Jesus.
To answer: most days I succeed, yet often enough I fail. For me the good things about failing is you get to try again, the failure doesn't define who I am, it is what I do with the failure.
Psalm 15 says I should fear the Lord. Fortunately it is that fear that make me quake at the decision not to speak up sometimes. Yet, it the love in which Jesus himself mannered that I must pattern how I speak up with. Sometimes things fall on deaf ears, sometimes the Lord is heard.
Matthew 5:14-16 says I should be a lamp. Hopefully, I am.
This is a hard one. Luke 9:21-27 says to take up the cross and follow him daily. Here I have difficulty. It is hard to worship in spirit and truth when people are watching. For me I am conscious of what other people are thinking. When you talk about sin and its effect, people quickly defend sin. Defending sin.....for someone seeking to turn away from sin, it is often interesting how many defend sin , yet let our Savior die again.
Ah ha, is this my answer? Galatians 1:10-24 says the following (in my NLT that I use):
Obviously, I’m not trying to win the approval of people, but of God. If pleasing people were my goal, I would not be Christ’s servant.
Dear brothers and sisters, I want you to understand that the gospel message I preach is not based on mere human reasoning. I received my message from no human source, and no one taught me. Instead, I received it by direct revelation from Jesus Christ.
You know what I was like when I followed the Jewish religion—how I violently persecuted God’s church. I did my best to destroy it. I was far ahead of my fellow Jews in my zeal for the traditions of my ancestors.
But even before I was born, God chose me and called me by his marvelous grace. Then it pleased him to reveal his Son to me so that I would proclaim the Good News about Jesus to the Gentiles.
When this happened, I did not rush out to consult with any human being. Nor did I go up to Jerusalem to consult with those who were apostles before I was. Instead, I went away into Arabia, and later I returned to the city of Damascus.
Then three years later I went to Jerusalem to get to know Peter,and I stayed with him for fifteen days. The only other apostle I met at that time was James, the Lord’s brother. 20 I declare before God that what I am writing to you is not a lie.
After that visit I went north into the provinces of Syria and Cilicia. And still the Christians in the churches in Judea didn’t know me personally. All they knew was that people were saying, “The one who used to persecute us is now preaching the very faith he tried to destroy!” And they praised God because of me.
Okay, so Paul is speaking here about serving Christ and how sometimes people just won't listen. If we are trying to please people, they will not hear what they need to hear. However, if we are speaking about God's truth they may be angered. Luckily I am not by the sea, or I may be swallowed by a large fish or something. Jonah had a tough job.
Fortunately the Lord has forgiven this sinner, so that I may share the Gospel with others.
