WHATEVER.................

"Whatsoever you do, in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ." Colossians 3:17

WHATEVER..............

Whatever is a pretty inclusive word.  Whatever you DO....whatever you SAY, do ALL in the name of the Lord Jesus. 

If we do or say something "in the name of the Lord Jesus" it means that we represent Him by what we do or say.  What we do or say directly reflects upon Him.  Ouch!!

So what falls under "whatever"?  Let's just think of a few:

How you drive.  When you get behind the wheel, do you drive the way Jesus would?  WHATEVER includes your driving.

How you speak to the telemarketer who calls you right when you're in the middle of something.  As Jesus' representative, how do you handle His calls?  WHATEVER includes your words.

How you treat the customer service representative that continues to argue with you.  WHATEVER means what you say as well as HOW you say it.  How do your words when you are stressed or angry reflect upon the Lord?

How you perform on the job.  Do you cut corners?  Do you respect your clients? Do you do your work with the utmost integrity?  Do you give a full 8 hours for 8 hours of pay?  How do you treat your co-workers? How do you treat your subordinates?   WHATEVER means you represent Him to every person you come in contact with on your job....those above you, those below you, those you work with and those you work for.  Do ALL in the name of the Lord Jesus. 

How you treat your family.  Do those who live in your house see Jesus in you?  Do your words represent Him?  WHATEVER also means WHEREVER ,including home where we often let down our guard and treat our family differently than we would treat a guest. 

Your daily household chores.  Whether you are doing laundry, mopping the floor, cleaning the bathroom, preparing a meal, cutting the lawn, or washing the car....WHATEVER you do at home, do it ALL in the name of the Lord Jesus. 

WOW!!  When you think  that passage through, it is easy to see that most of us probably fall short in a lot of areas.  But, now that you know....WHATEVER you do today....at home, at work, at play, at school, on the way or in between....do ALL in the name of (representing) Jesus Christ.  When you do, it will reflect WHO you belong to and it will draw others to Him. 

DINNER'S READY

We had only been married a couple of years. It was my birthday, but my usually thoughtful husband had not mentioned it. No card. No "Happy Birthday" when he called at lunch. No mention of a special dinner out as usual. Nothing. Nada. So I assumed he had forgotten.

Hurt and terribly wounded, I decided to just take my time getting home. I went shopping, ran a few errands, and just generally had a pity party.

When I arrived home, I found my husband trying to keep warm a delicious steak dinner he had taken off early to prepare, roses on a beautifully set table and of course, the usual card and gift. I was so sorry that I had doubted him and ruined his special plans. He was waiting for his bride and she failed to show. (or almost anyway)

From the time I was a little girl, I have had a love of beautiful tablescapes. Our church has begun a tradition of decorating tables for a holiday dinner and choir program at CHRISTmas called Tis His Season. The first year it began I was one of the first to volunteer! I LOVE IT!!!! To walk into that room and see all of those beautifully decorated tables will take your breath away!! It is a sight to behold.

There is a website that I ran across a few years ago called Between Naps on the Porch (there is a link on this page). It features dozens of gorgeous tablescapes. It is a feast for the eyes.

To me, when someone sets a table like that, it says that they are anticipating your presence and they want you to feel special and honored and cherished. And, when someone goes to that much trouble to make that kind of presentation, you can generally bet that they won't be serving hot dogs and chips. The food will be equally delectable and eye-pleasing as the table it will be served on.

Our pastor, who loves to create 'visuals', had a beautiful table set on stage this morning, complete with roses as the centerpiece, candles, china and delicate crystal. He used it to remind us that every day Jesus sets the table for us to come and dine with Him, to feast upon His word and to "break bread" with Him. And sadly, many days He waits and waits and waits and we are 'no-shows'. The next day, however, He once again prepares the table and waits, hoping we will find the time.

I wonder how long He sits at the table while He watches us pass right by on our way to the TV or the gym or the golf course? I wonder if tears stream down His face as we choose the stale crumbs of the newspaper or our magazines instead of feasting on the filet mignon of His Word. Does it not grieve His heart to see how we grow weaker and weaker from our "malnutrition" while all the nutrition we could possibly want is right at our fingertips, yet we choose not to partake?

He tells us in the Lord's Prayer that we are to have "daily" bread....not just occasionally or just on Sundays. He fed the children of Israel daily with manna and quail for 40 years! His Word is our life source and if we are to be healthy, vibrant Christians, we must feed upon it. II Timothy 3:16 reminds us that God's Word is "profitable for doctrine (so we'll know what we believe), for reproof (to show us where we've gone wrong), for correction (to show us how to make it right) and for instruction in righteousness (how we are supposed to live.) It is our instruction book, if you will, on the Christian life. If we do not open it, how can we know what God expects of us? If we do not feed upon it, we will miss all the rich treasures He has stored up for us. It is also His "love letter" to us, reminding us of how much He loves us and how faithful He is to us.

Today, won't you come to His table and partake of the banquet He has prepared for you? He is waiting just for you to join Him, to sit a while with Him, to enjoy His presence and to feast upon the "spiritual food" He has selected just for today's journey. Don't settle for the crumbs of the world, when you could be dining on the feast of Heaven.

CLEANSING YOUR MIND

"Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church [His Bride] and gave Himself for it that he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of the Word." Eph. 5: 25, 26


Paul wrote to the church at Ephesus to encourage them to be a Bride "without spot or blemish". As we are part of the Bride of Christ, how can WE be without spot or blemish? We all sin. We are all "spotted" and "blemished".

How do you get spots out of your laundry? You apply detergent and you wash it. When soap and water move through the fabric of your garments, it lifts out the dirt from within the fibers and leaves the garment clean and "unspotted".

God wishes to do the same thing in our minds by way of His Word. God wants to cleanse our minds and hearts with the "washing of the Word". John Ortberg states "When we come to God, our minds and hearts are like that [dirty laundry], cluttered with "false beliefs and attitudes, deadly feelings, misguided plans and hopes and fears."

Just think about some of the thoughts and attitudes you have already displayed today. Have you gotten irritated with somone? Maybe some slow poke on the expressway? Maybe a clerk in a store? Maybe a fellow employee? Maybe your spouse did not do something you wanted him/her to do? Maybe your child was acting up this morning?

All of us have those things in our minds that need to be "washed out". How do we do it? By meditating on God's word. Meditation requires more than just a casual reading. It is not Bible study...although Bible study is certainly good and beneficial to our lives. No, meditation is taking a verse and thinking on it throughout your day, chewing on it until it penetrates deep within your mind so that you GET IT! You begin to apply what you have learned and allow it to "wash" that area of your life than needs cleansing.

Once again Ortberg says, " Imagine having a mind cleansed of all the debris that blocks our best intentions. Imagine if each time you saw another person your first thought was to pray for him or bless her. Imagine what it would be like if, any time you were challenged or anxious, your reflexive response would be to turn to God for strength. Imagine, if you're a married man, that whenever you looked at any woman other than your wife you would see her as if she were your sister or your daughter. Imagine genuinely wishing your "enemies" well. That's what it would be to have the mind "washed by the Word". This is what it means to "let the word of Christ dwell in you richly". This is how we are to be TRANSFORMED by Scripture. This is our great need."


We do not meditate on scripture so that we can earn points with God. We don't do it so we can check it off a "spiritual checklist". Paul does not say that the purpose of knowing scripture is to enable us, when we go to Heaven to get 100 on our entrance exam. He says it is so that we will be equipped for good works. According to Ortberg we should become "transformed into the kind of people from whom goodness flows like an unceasing stream of water. If the Bible were to completely fulfill its mission, our minds would be so transformed...so filled with thoughts and feelings of truth, love, joy and humility....that our lives would become one uninterrupted series of acts of grace and moral beauty. Every moment would be a miniature reflection of life in the kingdom of God."

Think on this today. I challenge you to begin to immerse yourself in the Word...not so much so you can "get into the Word", but so that the Word can "get into you"!

references from John Ortberg are from his book "The Life You've Always Wanted". I HIGHLY recommend it!

GOD'S WORD

"All scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, so that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly equipped for all good works." II Tim . 3: 16, 17

God's word is holy.............

It's alive.................

It's powerful........................

It's life changing........................


Adrian Rogers wrote:

We must guard ourselves against lowering the standard of God’s Word to our level of understanding or political correctness. And we must guard ourselves against raising our standard of tradition above the standard of His Word. The Bible is not meant to be paraded past the judgment bar of your mind. You can argue with it, but why? You can pick up and read any other book, but this is the book that reads you. It pulsates with life and power. It cuts, burns, crushes, and wields mountain-moving power. His Word has a life of its own. It is the voice of God to you. You cannot refuse it, deny it, distort it, or dilute it. You can only bow before it

Have you picked yours up and read it today? Is there anything on your TO DO list more important today than hearing from God???????

THE POWER OF HIS WORD

"In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word WAS God....All things were made by Him and without Him was not any thing made that was made" John 1: 1,2

"In the beginning God created the Heaven and earth.........and God SAID 'Let there be light' and there was light....

And God SAID 'Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters....[and it was]...

And God SAID ' Let the waters under the Heaven be gathered together in one place and let the dry land appear, and it was so....

And God SAID 'Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed after his kind and the tree yielding fruit...after his kind....[and it was so]

And God SAID 'Let there be light....and it was so...

And God SAID 'Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creatures that have life and fowl that may fly above the earth...[and it was so]

And God SAID 'Let the earth bring forth the living creatures ....and it was so" Genesis 1: 1-24 KJV

The power of God's Word. God SPOKE the world into existence! Think about that for just a minute. At a point in time, God who had ALWAYS been, decided to create the earth. He literally spoke and it was so! Try to imagine that in your mind with me, if you will.

Total blackness, void of anything tangible. No light, no planets, no solar system, no stars, no moon, no ANYTHING. Just God. And then out of the blackness of nothingness, God spoke and the earth was formed, spinning perfectly on its axis out in the galaxy. And once again, He spoke and light broke the darkness wide open!! He flung the sun, the moon and the stars into that blackness and darkness was no more!

Just one word and the waters drew together into bodies of water...the seas, the oceans, the rivers. By His Word, it all came together.

He spoke again to the prophets of old and by divine inspiration, they penned the words He gave to them. We call it our Bible. We hold HIS WORDS in the palm of our hands. That powerful, life giving, world creating Word. The Word John says IS God. It is infused with Him. Can you fathom the power that we hold in our hands as we read His Holy Word?

Yet we toss it to the side amongst the newspaper, the gardening magazine, the crossword puzzle and the TV Guide. Some rarely pick it up except to dust it off and carry it to church each Sunday. That is the only time it is opened all week. Others sit it on a shelf and NEVER read it. Yet others around the globe, risk their lives to just have a copy of it and they have to hide theirs to protect it and their lives.

It has stood the test of time. Many other books have come and gone. The Bible still stands. It is notably the most read, most published book of all time. According to the Internet Public Library "No one really know how many copies of the Bible have been written, sold or distributed. The Bible Society's attempt to calculate the number printed between 1816 and 1975 produced the figure of 2, 458,000,000. A more recent survey for the years up to 1992, put it closer to 6,000,000,000 in more than 2,000 languages and dialects. Whatever the precise figure, the Bible is by far the best selling book of all time." Most other sources I checked also rated The Bible as the number one book of all time. Not surprising. Matthew 24:36 says "Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away."

Pick up your Bible today. Recognize that it is not an ordinary book. It is the very WORD of God, the same powerful Word that spoke the world into existence and by that same Word, the earth is kept in existence. One day He will speak again, and the Heavens will open and Jesus will return!! Let's not take for granted the power of God's Word, but rather allow it to fill us and change us and make us more like Him.