November 2012
John 14:6 NKJV
Jesus said to him, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me."
There is no status quo.
Faith- We all have faith in many different ways and things.
1- We have faith driving on a two lane road at sixty miles an hour. Our faith is in ourselves that we can stay on our side of the road. And, we have great faith in the unknown driver coming at us at 60 miles an hour that he will stay on his side of the road. It almost sounds stupid to have that much faith in so many people we do not know.
2- We go to a doctor and have faith that he/she will pay enough attention to us to diagnose our illness properly but, never thinking about the fact that doctor's themselves call what they do "a practice". We have faith that his practice on us is good and accurate.
3- We place entirely too much faith in ourselves. Part of the problem is we forget most of the failures we caused for ourselves and/or we blame others for our failures. We remember the good outcomes of our decision making that creates too much self-confidence. Our self-confidence can quickly evaporate when it becomes smothered in a good mess we create for ourselves. God does not have to test us or give us trials, we do enough of that for ourselves.
4- We board a plane, and what is the first thing the flight staff will do? They tell you what to do if the plane crashes! Makes you wonder if you really want to fly. Then, sometimes there is a "hold" on the flight because of maintenance problems. Then, a scruffy maintenance guy comes on the airplane with some heavy, thick, wide tape, then you think, "do I really want to fly?" Then, you remember the last sign you saw as you drove up to the airport, the sign said, "Terminal". Flying- it takes a lot of faith, especially when you consider that most of the parts that make up the plane and hold it together were built by the lowest bidder.
5- Why is it we have faith in hard, difficult, time consuming work? We have faith in our work to help make us happy! We eat up our time working so hard to buy labor saving devices and to provide for the best for our family that we have less time and energy for the very thing we worked so hard for. It is all about values. In spending time away from home and working hard to provide for the family, we often demonstrate poor values and fail to teach our children the important values in our lives. Teaching our children our reliance on God's love rather than having things in our lives is a life time process and experience.
6- I know of some people who will say, "I am a good spiritual person, I rarely attend church but I respect other's beliefs." If they are aware of or know Jesus as the Son of God, I wonder if He will know them when their time comes?
7- In times of trouble: When people of faith say "Why me?", maybe they need to pray for a little more patience and and for a whole lot less arrogance. When People of no faith say "Why Me?", I wonder who they think they are talking to, and I feel sorry for them. A student told me one day, "Mr. Coggins, I do not believe in God". I just looked at him and told him that I felt sorry for him. He had a puzzled look on his face. I hope one day he will understand before too much trouble comes his way.
Finally, we often spend too much of our life and effort putting our faith in people and things and too little time putting our faith in the one who created it all: the things, time, faith, and people. We often wait until it is too late and we really have missed important elements in our lives before we wonder where we went wrong. We should learn to pray about the little decisions in our lives before they become the big problems we should never have. If we develop the habit of praying about the little decisions we make, we are more ready and more likely to pray about the big decisions. In sincere, submissive praying, we come to trust God with our lives. Praying is good for us as it causes us to think more about the alternatives and the possible results of decisions. In prayer, we come to realize we need to be depending on God for His guidance, most importantly, we should pray for courage to come to think in terms of "What Would Jesus Do".
Everything you think, say, or do is either building your relationship with Jesus Christ or is tearing it down. There is no status quo in knowing, feeling, and desiring Christ in your life. The best way to build relationships is through communications, and communications with God- we call it prayer.
Thanks be to God
lonnie
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(c) Lonnie Coggins
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Publication 0081
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