This morning in my quiet time, I came across this statement. "None of us can enthrone the true God unless in the process we dethrone our other gods." Wow! That really caused me to think. Do I have other gods still on the throne? Then I remembered another statement that I had read during the time I was writing about the Rapture. "If Christ is not Lord over (you fill in the blank), then He is not our Lord." Because this statement set heavy over my thinking, I had to take inventory as to what or who I might give preeminence to over or before Christ. Folks, the more I thought about this, the more God brought to my remembrance of things I cherished or perhaps placed before Him. Listen to the list: Time: Many times I spend 30 minutes or even an hour in quiet time before God and think I've done well. But at the same time, I spent 3 hours yesterday afternoon watching Tiger Woods in the U.S. Open. Effort: Saturday, I worked furiously and hard getting things ready so the painter could get started painting our house on Tuesday. I took all the screens down, I moved all the plant stands, I even fixed a window lock that needed adjusting. I was serious about this and I made all the changes that were needed in order to get this process started. You could say, I was zealous about doing everything just right. Yet, this morning as I came to work, and just in case you don't know this, I work at my church as a Stewardship Pastor, thinking, I dread this week because I have so much to do. Money: I tithe more than 10% of my gross earnings and I give offerings above that and this morning as I came to work, I saw a man standing at the intersection with a sign that said, "Hungry, homeless, please help and I drove on by without giving him much of a second thought.
These are just a few of the things that came to my mind and I'm certain that if I continued to consider these things, that God would bring other things to my mind where I allow other things to be more important. You see when I saw that man on the street corner, my thinking was, "Yeaa, I bet you have more money in your pocket than I do. You see, this man may have had more cash in his pocket than I do, but the principle would be the same if he didn't. The question here is where is my compassion. Jesus spoke about the Good Samaritan in Luke 10:30-37 Two religious leaders passed by and did nothing and the good samaritan not only bandaged him up, but saw to his needs for many days to come.
OK, I just had to blog about this, because I think we all sometimes allow other gods to come before God and we need to do some "dethroneing". Just thought you might relate to this. I certainly want God to be Lord and I many times take Him off the throne of my life by putting other gods on the throne.
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11 years ago
6 comments:
Happy Belated Father's Day to my other Pop. I didn't forget you...just forgot to mention you, but I took care of it so come on back and let me out of the dog house please. :-) Love ya!
I most certainly can relate to the fact that we often put "things" on the throne instead of our Lord. It only takes the blink of an eye to change things in our life to make us realize that there should never be anything above Him. How human we are!
Eddie, I know how you felt driving by the homeless person. I've done it myself, but, do you think he may stand there with the sign, because he can make more money doing that than going to a day labor center and working for the day?
I don't mean to sound callous, but, there are outlets for people like him to find even temporary work instead of panhandling. I'm in downtown Chicago alot and I see it all around. It's more profitable to panhandle than actually work.
I'm sorry if I sound hard hearted, but, I've seen some real good "actors" also. Don't feel guilty over it. God also understands our skepticism.
While there are people I'm sure who are only "out for what they can get", there are also people who need to be helped. Jude 1:22 says "And of some have compassion, making a difference." Jesus had the greatest compassion for others even when they didn't deserve it. He walked among people that the Pharisees thought to be less than reputable. They were being very judgmental and selfish. In the example situation of a possible homeless person, as a Christian I think I will be judged individually for the intent of MY heart and not the intent of the OTHER persons heart. There are times that God puts people in our paths for reasons that we dont understand at the time and may never even see the results. No matter what, we have two choices, we can ignore the situation and go about our business or we can have compassion and try to make a difference in someone elses life. The only thing we can then be accused of is trying to be more like Jesus. We may be the only Jesus that some people ever see.
In case you didn't notice, this is a pretty important topic to me and I have several thoughts on it. For more information, stay tuned for a blog!
Food for thought.
Wow, lots of comments on this one. Where we live there are people who hold signs that say "Homeless Veteran. Will work for food". I have given to these people before only to go to the store across the street and see them buying beer. Sad thing is I have done it more than once (different men). The way I see it, God knows I gave that money out of compassion for those men - they are the ones who will have to answer for the way they used that money. Like Greg, I think there are those that prey on the good will of others and then there are those who are truly in need and should be given money. The sad part is that in this day and age, its hard to tell the difference between the two.
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