Friday July 1, 2011

If I were to ask you to prove the following equation, what would you do? Answer honestly. Maybe our builder from yesterday had the right idea!



Most of us would throw up our hands in despair and say ‘I don’t know’. When we don’t know what to do we usually revert back to something we do know how to do. If I don’t know how to express my anger, I’ll revert to tantrums and hitting things. If I don’t know how to love my spouse I’ll revert to selfishness. If I don’t know how to get involved at church I’ll revert to sitting quietly and running off as the last hymn starts.

Colossians 3 outlines for us a vital principal of victory. If we are going to have victory in our lives we need to take several steps. Let me outline them for you - the impact they have in your life will depend on what you do with them:-

1. Identify specifically the ungodly areas that you need to change. Our builder from yesterday needed to find a godly way to express his anger when he hit his thumb. For him to say ‘I need to stop swearing’ is too vague. Be specific man. Get to the point.

2. Talk with mature Christians (friends, pastor, elders etc) and ask them to share with you godly ways of dealing with your issue. Our builder could sit with the pastor and say something like, ‘Hey cool Pastor,  whenever I hit my thumb I really swear like a trooper. It’s not glorifying to God. What else can I do?’

3. After gathering a list of alternatives, sort them and choose the most appropriate for you and your context.

4. Pray that action and reaction into your life and start putting it into practice right now!  You are effectively substituting a negative or sinful action with a godly or positive one.

The replacement strategy works for thoughts and well as actions. If you have

sinful thoughts when Person X enters the room, work through steps 1 – 4 above and start getting godly thoughts into your head.  You’ve seen it on paper now, let’s see it in your life and my life. Praise the Lord.

Prayer:

V Pray for the upcoming Children's ministries that they will a large number of children in attendance at our school holidays program and that the supervisors will have opportunities to share the Word of God with all the children and parents in attendance.

V Ask the lord to show you His plan for your life, your role in the body of Christ and how you can be serving and ministering to others.

V Pray that God’s grace will flow out from the student life representatives through out Australia. Pray that many students will be brought to the Lord in repentance and faith through grace.