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Tid bits.

G

gingercat

Guest
I just finished my thread "Whole hearted commitment"

This is going to be my second but last one, so please bear with me. I hope you let me finish this and I will be out of your way.
 
1. Giving
We are not giving as much as Jesus wants us to do. Luke 14:33 "Whoever of you does not forsake all that he as can not be my disciple." Paul tells us in 2 Co 8:l3 "Our desire is not that others might be relieved while you are hard pressed, but that there might be equality."

Most of us always have excuses about giving: God knows our heart, I am loving inside, we dont have to tithe anymore, dont be legalistic, etc, etc... I am sure you can think up many more excuses. If we are limiting our giving to only 10% then we are being legalistic. 10% should be the minimum of our giving to God. But guess what? Jesus wants us to give much more than just 10% of our income, especially when most of us are living such luxurious lifestyles. I am less than average but compared to many other countries, I am like a millionaire. We should provide for brethren in need first. Then give to the secular world if we can. Jesus wants us to carry each others' burdens. We are not doing it. Many of us don't even know if there are other brethren in need. Pastors are not informing their congregation about them.
 
2. Materialistic Christians.
Jesus lived humbly. Why can we give as much as we should as His followers? We always talk about love. One of the biggest part of love is giving. If we cannot help other brethren in need we are not being loving. Churches hardly ever talk about self-discipline. If we live like secular world we cannot be geneous givers because everything is costly in free world.
 
3. Social clubs.
What is Christian fellowship? I believe we use fellowship to get to know each other on a personal basis. I have attended many denominations but none approached to me with real sincere interst in me. I am a very friendly and easily approachable (after all I am a volunteer evangelist so I have to be friendly and easy to talk to, otherwise I cannot accomplish my job.) We are so superficial in our fellowshipping. When we get together with many people in one time, we can hardly get to know anyone. I always wonderd if they really want to get to know each other on personal basis.
 
4. Reward?
I hear so many people say we don't need to do good works for salvation. Good works is just extra reward. Yes, that's true. We don't need good works for salvatin. But once we accepted Him into our lives a good witnesses is a must!!!

First of all, we accepted Him as Lord, too. Lord means "Master". He is giving us a lot of work to do after we became Christians. Good witnessing is a enormous work. That's why we need His help and He promissed He will help us.

Being a faithful servant is not easy task. We will never accomplish by relying on someone else teaching us. We have to take initiative by reading the Bible everyday and strive to obey everyting He teaches. If we do our best, Jesus blesses our effort and it will whow in our every aspect of our lives.

The pastoers and churches emphasize so much on OSAS. But why aren't they informing their people very inportant part of sevanthood? Being a loyal and faithful to Him is not legalism. It is showing Him love and repect and honor for Him.

Are we saved without showing Him love and honor and loyalty He desrves? He says "If you love me keep my commandments."
 
5. Good witnessing.

I believe our main mission for Him is evangelizing. When we are not being obedient in our daily lives, we cannot evangelize. Who is going to pay attention or listen to people whose lives are not godly? Jesus' teachings are effective and useful in every aspect of our lives. When we are doing our best to be obedient to His teachings and commands, He will give us a heart of evangelism. And we will be effectice when we do it.
 
6. "Be perfect as I am perfect"

We all know that no one is perfect like Jesus. But Jesus is expecting us to do our best fo follow Him. Then He will do the rest by helping us. If we are doing our best, we will grow or improve ourselves for His glory continuously. We have responsibilities to be a good witnesses for Him. Without doing our best, being good witnesses is impossible.
 
7. Fear of the Lord.

when we see so many corrupted pastors, I even wonder if they read the Bible and are true followers. They will pay attention to their congregations and do something about if they fear the Lord. I truly fear for those pastors. They are not showing "fear of the Lord". The pastors are responsible for their congregations. That's why God is paying salary for it. They are getting paid without doing their job of leading them to be obedient followers. Of course if they do what they are supposed to be doing they will lose a lot of members, but regardless, that's what they have to do.

Pampering is not "loving": Leading them to be obedient to the Lord is "loving".
 
8. Holyness.

The Bible says to be holy as God is Holy. what I learned from the Bible is that being Christ like means being holy. How do we do it? We must strive to imitate Jesus by obeing His teachings. We should read thd Bible everyday and obey what we read in the NT.
 
9. Christian parenting.
The Bible tells us to raise the children as how they should go. I have learned that most of the parents are not interested in study the Bible daily and obey. It is a shame because if parents have this kind of attitudes, how can we raise them for the Lord? Children are almost like sure fruit for the Lord if parents are obedient Christians. Just attending church does not make us Christians: That goes for children too. Just because we take them to the church does not make them to be Christians.
 
10. "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, strength and mind."
This is the most important commmand He gave us, yet most of us are ignoring it. When we say we love God but our actions don't come along, we are lying to God. That's what is going on in our Christian communities.
 
11. Marriage.
The modern Christian communithy's marriages are no different from the secular world's . Because we are being disobedient in this department too. we are not supposed to yoke with non-believers. Do we teach our kids to marry committed Christians? Do we know what kind of partner or family they are choosing as their spouse? Do our pastors really care if the couples they are marrying are serious Christians?

The general answers to all of these questions are "no".
 
12. Satan
Satan is the opposite of God. He is working aginst God. He is working very hard to keep us away from God. We can easily be used by him if we are not completely devoted to Jesus.
We will be used if we are half-hearted Christians. Satan loves hypocrisy. Satan loves half-truth messages. Satan loves luke-warm Christians. Satan loves worldly Christians. Satan loves disobedient Christians.
When we are loved by satan, we are working against God.
 
13. Born again.
It seems that many of us don't understand the meaning of being "born again".
If we are Christians, we are born again. If we are not born again we are not Christians.
If we sincerely repent when we ask for forgiveness of sins, God will give us renewed hearts and we will start changing right away in every aspect of our lives. Of course it will increase more and more as the days and years go by and we should become almost Christ like when we ger old. If we are not changing or growing and people don't notice our changed life, God is not in us. Then we are deceiving ourselves and others.
 
14. Predicaments.
We all know that just because we are Christians we are not immune from difficulties. In fact, if we are strong Christians God will give us predicaments more and more because He is trusting us to handle the situations for His glory. If we are living comfortable lives without much difficulty, we should worry. He says "if you follow Me you will be persecuted."
 
15. Quality churches.
The Bible tells us to "have nothing to do with the furitless deeds of darkness."
Do we examine our churches to see how we are doing as a whole? Do we know if our pastors are living what they preach? Are we attending our church because the pastors don't make us feel guilty or chllenge us? Does you pastor care about and know everyone's walk with the Lord? Do we know that we are supposed to be Jesus' servants and that He is giving us a lot of work to do?
 
16. Spirit-filled life.
We don't have to be long time Christians to be Spirit-filled. How do we become spirit-filled Christians? If we are whole heartedly committed to Him, we are Spirit-filled. If we are willing bo be used by Him everyday, we are Sprit-filled. If we are His faithful servant we are Spirit-filled. Jesus blesses us with His Spirit if we are His willing servant. We don't have to speak tongues as some denomination are claiming. I believe how they interpret the Holy Spirit is twisted and wrong.
 
17. Bible knowledge.
It seems that we have many Bible scholars in the churches. Yet they are incapable of educating their people on how to be obedient. The Bible, especially the New Testament, is so useful in our daily lives to be effective servants.
Christians are Jesus' followers. We cannot follow Him if we don't know what He is teaching. Do you strive to know everything what He is telling us to do everyday? Jesus and His disciples are showing and teaching us what we have to be doing as Christians in the New Testament.
 
18. Blessing.

Of course, the biggest blessing that God gives us is our salvation. This is so priceless. I never knew the meaning of "joy" and "love" until I became Christian. I would not trade places with the world's richest man Bill Gates. Jesus taught me the meaning of "love". He gave up His own life for us. When we understand His sacrifice, we will strive to be obedient to Him.
 
19. Loop holes.
Many times when I talk to fellow believers I get the feeling that most of us are looking for loop holes or shortcuts for our servanthood.
There arnt't any loop holes or shortcuts for serving Him. On the contrraly, we have to deligently study the Bible thoroghly and look for thd things we are missing to serve Him. We have to know that He has so many things for us to learn and we have to work for Him. We should strive to obey everything He teaches or commands.
 
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