Grace Gems: Our Conception of Christian Living

This Grace Gem reminded me a lot of one of today's sermons:

Our conception of Christian living
(J. R. Miller, "Being Christians on Weekdays" 1888)

True religion is intensely practical. Only so far as it dominates one's life--is it real. We must get the commandments out of God's Word--and give them a place in the hard, dusty paths of our earthly toil and struggle. We must get them off the tables of stone--and have them written on the walls of our own hearts! We must bring the Golden Rule--into our daily, actual life.

We are too apt to imagine, that holiness consists in mere good feeling toward God. It does not! It consists in obedience in heart and life to the divine requirements. To be holy is, first, to be set apart for God and devoted to God's service, and it necessarily follows that we must live for God.

Our hands are God's--and can fitly be used only in doing His work; our feet are God's--and may be employed only in walking in His ways and running His errands; our lips are God's--and should speak words only that honor Him and bless others; our hearts are God's--and must not be profaned by thoughts and affections that are not pure.

True holiness is no vague sentiment--it is intensely practical. It is nothing less than the bringing of every thought and feeling and act--into obedience to Christ! We are quite in danger of leaving out the element of obedience, in our conception of Christian living. If we do this, our religion loses its strength and grandeur--and becomes weak, nerveless and forceless.

Our religion must touch every part of our life--and transform it all into the beauty of holiness.

Obedience

Lesson of the day:

Obedience is not only doing what you are told when you are told, it is doing things before you're even told to do them, not only because it will please the other person, but because obedience is pleasing to God.

"Children, obey your parents in everything, for this pleases the Lord." - Col. 3:20

Application:

Just so everyone understands where I'm coming from, if you know your parents like to see your room all neat and tidy, for example, don't wait for them to tell you "son/daughter please go clean your room", have it clean and tidy before they even come home from work or wherever.

Disobedience: A Humbling Experience

I was helping little Robert with his homework today and it was going so well, he had to look for and paste words that start with the letters m and a (in that order). He would look for the words and I would cut them out and paste them on his notebook, seemingly a simple task. After a while and as it is expected, he started to get really distracted with just about anything but I tried to quiet him down and get him to pay attention. At one point he went to the bathroom and came back, I asked if he had washed his hands (always ask children this) he was honest and said no (I was so happy to know that he chose not to lie, don't be surprised children DO lie) and then said he would do so immediately. He came back again drew his hands near the tip of my nose and said "all done" I smelled his hands and said "hmmm nice" well that gave him the crazy idea of wanting to go back and put some cologne on (he likes to dress nice and smell nice so people will compliment him..what a kid!) but I told him not to, I told him to save it for tomorrow when going to school. Of course after that he was really discouraged and not interested at all in continuing the homework. After struggling with him for a while, he went to throw something to the trash as an excuse of course because when he came back he drew his palm near my nose again and it smelled like cologne. I was so disappointed, so sad that he would disobey me like that and expressed my feelings of disappointment for his disobedience. Why this very long and perhaps boring story? Because in that moment I thought, *gasp* I'm disappointed for his disobedience! wow what does the Lord feel whenever WE disobey!
What a humbling moment and a thought to stay with me for a lifetime. I'm not a parent yet, but this is one of those moments the Lord has allowed me to have for growth and preparation for the future.
Lord forgive us for our disobedience, especially me!