Jesus isn't your Genie!
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· 2 viewsGod is a faithful God of love, forgiveness and mercy! However he requires faithfulness from us also.
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Faithful Followers of God Have Major life Commitments to Him
Faithful Followers of God Have Major life Commitments to Him
When we begin to look at Proverbs 3 1-12 we start to notice some guidelines as to how we become faithful to trusting that what Christ has in store for us is perfect
Proverbs has given us 5 things that we have to faithfully do in order to accomplish complete trust in Christ
1 My son, do not forget my teaching,
but let your heart keep my commandments,
2 for length of days and years of life
and peace they will add to you.
3 Let not steadfast love and faithfulness forsake you;
bind them around your neck;
write them on the tablet of your heart.
4 So you will find favor and good success
in the sight of God and man.
5 Trust in the Lord with all your heart,
and do not lean on your own understanding.
6 In all your ways acknowledge him,
and he will make straight your paths.
7 Be not wise in your own eyes;
fear the Lord, and turn away from evil.
8 It will be healing to your flesh
and refreshment to your bones.
9 Honor the Lord with your wealth
and with the firstfruits of all your produce;
10 then your barns will be filled with plenty,
and your vats will be bursting with wine.
11 My son, do not despise the Lord’s discipline
or be weary of his reproof,
12 for the Lord reproves him whom he loves,
as a father the son in whom he delights.
The first point I have for today and the first thing we must do in order to fully trust Christ is
Stay Faithful to Christ’s Teachings (Proverbs 3:1-2)
Stay Faithful to Christ’s Teachings (Proverbs 3:1-2)
1 My son, do not forget my teaching,
but let your heart keep my commandments,
2 for length of days and years of life
and peace they will add to you.
Now I know your thinking
“well duh that’s obvious”
But guys for so many people it really isn’t that obvious
sometimes we hear someone ask Christ for something and then in the same sentence find some way to say something that breaks one of his commands
So let me ask you
How can we call upon the name of Jesus and the very next thing we do is against his commandments?
Now obviously we know we aren’t perfect but we can’t call upon the name of the Lord while at the same time be breaking his laws and commandments without a thought in our mind.
A follower of Christ must remain faithful to the laws of the Lord
It is so easy to begin to live of a double life per-say for examples this is us on Sunday
“I’ve been praying so hard for my brother to make it into church and come to know the Lord”
I mean for real guys we fill our lives with things that are against the will of Christ then expect Christ to be there like a fairy or a genie in a bottle to fix all our issues.
We can never obey the commands of Christ as much as he deserves, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try.
Love Must be at the Center of a Faithful Follower (Proverbs 3:3-4)
Love Must be at the Center of a Faithful Follower (Proverbs 3:3-4)
3 Let not steadfast love and faithfulness forsake you;
bind them around your neck;
write them on the tablet of your heart.
4 So you will find favor and good success
in the sight of God and man.
Have you seen these people that just complain about everything?
If you are saying no right now then thats a bad sign cause it probably means you are that person.
How is it possible for one to faithfully trust in Christ when we cannot display the same kind of patience, love and mercy that he did?
I think its funny sometimes we can talk to people and they’ll say “don’t go to that restaurant because it was so bad we didn’t even leave a tip”
My reply to that usually is “oh so the service was bad?”
They continue to tell me “no the service wasn’t bad our food wasn’t any good”
Think about that for a minute
You choose to punish your waitress because the chef didn’t do a good job cooking?
In what world is it compassionate to not reward someone for doing a good job because you weren’t happy with another aspect of your experience?
That’s like saying someone came to paint your house did a great job but at the same time you had someone mow your yard and you didn’t pay the guy who painted because the yard looked bad
My point is lack of compassion, mercy and love leads to a life of bitterness and anger
If we choose to constantly be a complainer, unforgiving and unloving we can expect a life where we are almost never happy.
Trust in the Plans that Christ Has (Proverbs 3:5-8)
Trust in the Plans that Christ Has (Proverbs 3:5-8)
5 Trust in the Lord with all your heart,
and do not lean on your own understanding.
6 In all your ways acknowledge him,
and he will make straight your paths.
7 Be not wise in your own eyes;
fear the Lord, and turn away from evil.
8 It will be healing to your flesh
and refreshment to your bones.
Notice top of verse 7 “be not wise in thine own eyes”
Now out of the three we’ve went over so far I think this could quite frankly be the hardest to swallow for most of us
We have a tenancy to make our own plans that involve our own timing
We fail to trust the plan God has on our lives, to some extent this means we begin to act as though Gods will and purpose for our lives aren’t good enough.
Now none of us can ever even imagine what it’d be like to be God but could we just imagine for a moment what he must feel like to know the ones he has given so much to choose not to follow his plans because to us they tend to not be happening fast enough or be good enough
Also another thing is sometimes we see the plan God has for us and he has revealed that to us in whatever matter but it isn’t happening fast enough for us so what do we do? We try to rush his plan along
One thing I quickly learned is as a Christian just cause you know what God has planned doesn’t mean we get the privileged to rush it along 99.9% of the times we try to rush God we get majorly burned in the end
We cannot decide what God has in store and we cannot rush what God has in store
A faithful follower to Christ will commit to faithfully following the plan that Christ has for us, even if we don’t like it or it is too slow.
We Have to Live Prepared to Honor God with All We Have (Proverbs 3:9-10)
We Have to Live Prepared to Honor God with All We Have (Proverbs 3:9-10)
9 Honor the Lord with your wealth
and with the firstfruits of all your produce;
10 then your barns will be filled with plenty,
and your vats will be bursting with wine.
The good news for us is these verses teach us that God will provide
but the fourth point has a bit of a stipulation to Gods providence
Before Christ will have special providence for his people we must choose to live a life honoring Christ with all we have been given.
We have to honor Christ with all we have been given
If we choose to live a life dishonoring to Christ, meaning to use what we have been given to anyhting that isn’t for his will or good then we can expect to live a life without Christ being the one providing for us
Now the first two definitions of Honour I want to share with you and I also want to use them in a sentence
high respect; great esteem.
"his portrait hangs in the place of honor"
adherence to what is right or to a conventional standard of conduct.
"I must as a matter of honor avoid any taint of dishonesty"
Now basically to Honor God with what we have means simply to “use what we have been giving in a honest right way and to do it with high respect to Christ”
Now if we use it in those word there is no way that any Christian on the face of the earth shouldn’t say I WANT to Honor Christ eith what I have been given
Now the 5th and final one I think is often the hardest to do, its often the one that causes us to not be able to follow the other 4 and it is sometimes the easiest thing to fall into
We Cannot Argue with God (Proverbs 3:11-12)
We Cannot Argue with God (Proverbs 3:11-12)
11 My son, do not despise the Lord’s discipline
or be weary of his reproof,
12 for the Lord reproves him whom he loves,
as a father the son in whom he delights.
As followers of Christ he loves us so much that tells us when we do right from wrong
That being said we aren’t always happy about the Lord tellign us to stop doing certain things or to slow down
We live in a very fast paced world and I think sometimes we could spend a little more time jst stopping and talking to Jesus
The problem often comes for us that we so often don’t like what Jesus tells us back when we finally choose to talk, because we think our plans and our lives should go our way and not his.
We want to live a life where God answers our prayers
He is always there when we need him
We want him to not be involved unless we ask
We want him to agree with our plans
We want to spend our money our way
We want to obey the commands we like and avoid the ones we don’t
but here is the problem
God doesn’t work like a genie, and we don’t get to choose when we want him. We have to either be fully committed or we may as well not be committed at all.