Wednesday, January 28, 2015
Do We Really Follow?
“Do We Really Follow?”
By Zach Wood
John 8:31-32
“To the Jews who had
believed him, Jesus said, ‘If you hold to my teaching, you are really my
disciples. Then you will know the truth,
and the truth will set you free.’”
It’s really easy for any of us to do something in our lives
and think we are good at it. We often
try new things or get into a new hobby or other activity and think we do a
pretty good job. Maybe at our work we get
into doing a new project and we consider ourselves to be doing a pretty decent
job and we feel good about. While it’s
great to feel good about a job well done no matter what we are doing, it’s
still important to make sure we are actually doing things correctly.
It’s quite easy for us to go along through life and think we
are doing things correctly and quite well.
Sometimes, a manager or supervisor at a job or a friend or family member
needs to stop us and show us how to really do things right. We’re often taken off guard when we realize
we haven’t really been doing things right and need to shift gears and do things
another way. It’s not that we desired to
do things wrong, but we thought we had a pretty good idea how to do them.
Sadly, this happens a lot in our walk with God. We often go through life doing things we feel
are worthy of Jesus and His teachings, but really we are just doing what we
think is right. It’s easy to go through
each day of life and “think” we are doing things right, when many times we may
not be. We must constantly be in God’s
Word and seeking His direction through the day so that we know we are in step
with Him. We can say we are true
followers, but if we’re just doing what we think may be right and what we like
to do, that doesn’t mean we are truly following Him.
Jesus says if we truly hold to His teaching, then we are
really His disciples. We cannot just
think we are doing life right and go on our merry little ways. We usually have great intentions, but if we
are not truly seeking to follow Christ and checking His Word to make sure we
are following, then we need to reexamine our ways. When we choose to study His Word daily and
pray for guidance, then we will know the truth more and that truth will surely
set us free.
We cannot just think we know what is right to be doing, we
must be in sync with His Word so that we know what we are doing is from His
teaching.
Thursday, January 22, 2015
Loving Others
“Loving Others”
By Zach Wood
1 John 4:13-16
“We know that we live
in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. And we have seen and testify that the Father
has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world.
If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in him
and he in God. And so we know and rely
on the love God has for us. God is
love. Whoever lives in love lives in
God, and God in him.”
Does it seem to be easy to love others when we enjoy being
around them? Does it seem easy to love
others when we get along with them and don’t argue? Of course it does. When our kids are behaving and using great
manners, it puts a smile on our face.
When we are around family and friends who we really enjoy being with,
loving seems to come naturally.
How about when we are around others who seem to be nothing
but difficult for us? How about when we
are around our kids or other’s kids who do nothing but whine, complain and
throw fits? How about when we work right
beside someone all day long who does nothing but use foul language?
How do we feel about loving others when we are around these
people and others that are challenging to be with? Of course loving others with God’s love is so
much easier when we are around those who don’t present a challenge to
love. We sure want things easy, don’t
we? We want things to be the easy way so
much. However, we often forget that God
wants to work through others who are difficult to build our character and to
teach us to love deeper.
How could we possibly grow in loving others if we are always
around those whom are easy to show love?
We would not grow. God’s love is
definitely beyond our love. However, we
can still strive to show His love, even though we will be imperfect many
times. We must make an effort to be
sincere in our love for others, especially when other people seem to be more
difficult.
What we must always remember when we deal with difficult
people is that we are also difficult to deal for others to deal with as
well. As much as we sometimes want to
focus on how others are toward us, we are the same way. God’s love needs to be lived through us,
always. No matter how difficult others
are, God wants to strengthen our hearts so that we learn to love regardless of
how we are treated.
Wednesday, January 14, 2015
Listening Is Not Enough
“Listening Is Not Enough”
By Zach Wood
James 1:22-25
“Do not merely listen
to the word, and so deceive yourselves.
Do what it says. Anyone who
listens to the word but does not do what it says is like a man who looks at his
face in a mirror and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately
forgets what he looks like. But the man
who looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues to do
this, not forgetting what he has heard, but doing it—he will be blessed in what
he does.”
Being a parent has been one of the most challenging things
for me to deal with over the past eight years.
I absolutely love being a dad, but as any parent would claim and admit
to, it has its very frustrating and challenging times. No parent can escape this. While we love our kids and would do anything
for them, there are very challenging times, especially when they don’t
listen. It creates frustration to try to
do the best parenting and not say or do something we will regret later.
No matter how many times I have issues with my kids not
listening, God always uses those situations to remind me that I often struggle
with listening. There are so many times
I have problems listening to Him. When I
notice how my kids don’t listen, it’s often a great reminder God uses to show
me how I don’t listen to Him often. It’s
painful to realize this, but this pain often helps me to grow and to be
reminded how I need to listen to Him more.
However, listening is only part of the battle. Listening is great and we all need to be
better and improve on this area in our lives, but it’s only part of what we
need to do. After we listen, then we
need to do what we’re told to do. We
cannot just do things halfway and think we’ve done well. Again, while listening is great and
understanding what we’ve heard is wonderful, then we need to put into practice
what we’ve heard.
I appreciate how James explains that listening and not doing
is pretty much worthless. If all we do
is listen and not put anything we’ve heard into practice, it’s about as useless
as looking into a mirror and then forgetting what we look like. God gives us commands and instructions for us
to obey and put into practice. If we
don’t, we are not being obedient to Him.
We must break this “halfway” problem and do more than just listen. We must do what we’ve been told to do.
Just as we want our kids to do more than listen to us, we
also must listen and do what God has told us to do.
Friday, January 9, 2015
Our Need Provider
“Our Need Provider”
By Zach Wood
Matthew 6:33
(NLT)
“Seek the Kingdom of God
Jesus talks on the Sermon on the Mount about worrying in our
lives and what it does to us and what it does not do for us. It hurts us so much when we worry and it does
not become a productive thing for us. So
many of us are great at worrying.
We tend to seek a lot of things in our lives. We seek a good spouse. We seek a great friendship. We seek a good
job. We seek to have good kids. We seek to have a nice house. The list could go on and on. We seek a lot of things. None of these things are bad in and of
themselves, but when they become what we focus most on, then we’ve taken our
eyes off Christ and we start to worry.
I like how this translation explains that we need to seek
God above all things. It is not at all
that we cannot seek to have a good life by having things, but these things and
relationships cannot be what we seek the most.
If we have our eyes completely on Christ to be our All in All, then He
will provide all that we need in life.
When our eyes are focused on Christ, it is much easier to
not worry about little things that we so often focus on that we make
bigger. It is great how Jesus encourages
us not to worry, but to make Him priority and He will provide everything we
need. Easier said than done, but what
has Jesus ever asked us to do that would be easy? His ways are not easy. They are challenging and they are intended to
build our character and make us stronger.
As you continue into this new year and throughout the year,
I encourage all of us to focus on Him more so that our worries become less and
less. He will provide. He will give us all that we need. We desperately need to seek Him more than
anything else we desire. When we do
this, we will see our worries lessen because we are relying more on Him.
Wednesday, December 31, 2014
A Positive New Year
“A Positive New Year”
By Zach Wood
Philippians 4:8
“Finally,
brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is
pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable--if anything is excellent or
praiseworthy--think about such things.”
This time of year is big for many people to think about the
past twelve months and all that has happened.
Many of us think about what we have done for the past year and what has
affected our lives. We tend to think
about the good things we’ve done and regret the bad things. Who wouldn’t regret the bad things?
None of us want to remember or reminisce about negative
things that have happened. However,
these are the very things we tend to dwell on and we get so caught up in the
negative at times that we forget all the great things God has done for us,
through us and in us. Paul is very
adamant to the church in Philippi that they focus their
thoughts on anything that is positive and encouraging and praiseworthy. Who wouldn’t want to focus on positive
things?
As this year comes to a close and we look into a new year,
what positive things can you focus on and encourage others to be better
about? What new attitude could you have
toward people and situations that maybe you didn’t react to very well this past
year? It’s wonderful when we can learn
from our past so that we make better choices and have better attitudes toward
things in the future. God can use past
mistakes to help us learn to make better choices as we move along in our lives
each day.
We definitely need to focus our attention to being more
positive and praiseworthy, especially in the hard times when we are tempted to
do nothing but complain. I encourage all
of us to make it a goal, as we begin a new year, to start each day in thanksgiving
to God for all that He’s done and continues to do.
Tuesday, December 23, 2014
True Christmas Celebration
“True Christmas Celebration”
By Zach Wood
Luke 2:6-7
“While they were
there, the time came for the baby to be born, and she gave birth to her
firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because
there was no room for them in the inn.”
As I write this today, I am looking out my office window and
watching the beautiful snow fall to the ground.
There’s always been something fascinating to me about watching snow fall
since I was a child. It’s not only
fascinating, but it’s beautiful as well.
The same goes for a clear night when I can look up at the beautiful sky
and see all the stars. What beauty to
behold! And one of my favorite sights to
see is a sunrise or a sunset. That is
truly breathtaking! The vast array of
colors that comes through on the horizon is just awesome!
These are all creations of a wonderful and mighty God! We are reminded every single day, through His
Creation, of how wonderful and awesome He truly is! While these are wonderful and beautiful, they
are just a reminder of the greatness of God Himself. The greatest thing that has ever happened to
us is that Christ came into this world, lived a perfect life and gave His life
so that we would have eternal life and choose to follow Him.
As we gather together for this Christmas season, let us
never ever forget the true reason we have life and why we even celebrate. We would have nothing if we didn’t have Jesus
Christ. Mary gave birth to a beautiful
baby boy, but not just any boy. That boy
would grow up to teach others and give His life so that we could experience a
truly beautiful life that only He can give.
While there are many beautiful sights to behold throughout
our days through His Creation, the most beautiful sight is the life that was
born into this world and was given up so that we could have life. There is nothing greater or more beautiful
that Jesus Christ Himself, the Son of God.
He is truly the reason we should celebrate, not only as Christmas, but
every day throughout the year.
Wednesday, December 17, 2014
A True Desire To Seek
“A True Desire To Seek”
By Zach Wood
Psalm 119:10
“I seek you with all
my heart; do not let me stray from your commands.”
We all know things we are supposed to do in life. There are rules to keep us in line and
obedient. Growing up, we became accustomed
to hearing rules set by our parents. We
knew we needed to clean our room. We
knew we needed to take out the trash. We
knew we needed to take our turn washing the dishes. If we didn’t obey, there would be
consequences and we would get punished in some way.
I’m guessing most of us didn’t grow up with an enthusiastic
attitude toward doing these chores and possibly many others we were asked to
do. As years grow on us, we hopefully
come to grasp the idea of being a servant and doing things with a glad and
sincere heart. Maybe we grow with more
of a desire to do these things not only for our parents, but for others out of
an attitude of service.
There’s a difference between doing something out of
obligation and doing something because you want to. This passage describes someone who sets out
to seek God with their heart. Hopefully
this passage describes you in that you desire God and seek Him with all your
heart. When we truly seek Him and desire
to follow Him completely, our lives will stray less and less.
The more we read, the more we put into practice in our daily
walk with Christ, the more we grow in His image. This desire grows inside of us and we seek to
do nothing more than follow Him and be obedient. This doesn’t come from an obligation, but
from a sincere desire in the relationship we have with Him. When you really want to do something, you
show strong desire. When we have a
sincere desire to follow Christ, that desire will shine and be visible to
others.
Do we find ourselves asking this question from childhood
into our relationship with God, “Do I
have to??” Or do we find ourselves
going from “having to” to “wanting to” with following God? Our relationship with Him must be a sincere
desire to follow, otherwise it’s merely obligation and no true desire.
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