The privileges of being a child of God
Written anonymously on the walls of a medieval castle were the following words:
You call me Master and obey me not. You call me Light and See me not. You call me the Way and Walk me not. You call me Life and Desire me not. You call me Wise and Follow me not. You call me Fair and Love me not. You call me Rich and ask me not. You call me Eternal and seek me not. You call me Gracious and Trust me not. If I condemn you, blame me not.
As I was going about my week, I had the opportunity to witness to different people. One lady said she belonged to a big church. She said she believed in Christ. She also is having Bible studies with J. W’s. She also had an experience in a sweat lodge that really helped her. She smokes. A man talked with listen as I told him my belief about Christ as Savior and the Holy Spirit as sanctifier and he agreed with me. I asked him if he attended church and he said he goes to different churches and finds good in all of them. He also smokes. I talked with another man who said he is sure he is going to heaven but did not tell me he attends church anywhere. I am not the judge nor do I want to be but it made me stop and think what the privilege of being a child of God is. If we are to be like Christ what characteristics do we have that makes us know we belong to Him.
Hate is like acid. It can damage the vessel in which it is stored as well as destroy the object on which it is poured. Ann Landers The best thing to do behind a friend’s back is pat it. Ruth Brillhart
This brought me to our scripture for today, Acts 6:3, 5, 8, 10, 15 "Now look around among yourselves, brothers, and select seven men who are well respected and are full of the Holy Spirit and wisdom. This idea pleased the whole group, and they chose the following: Stephen, a man full of faith and the Holy Spirit. Stephen, a man full of God’s grace and power, performed amazing miracles and signs among the people. None of them was able to stand against the wisdom and Spirit by which Stephen spoke. At this point, everyone in the council stared at Stephen because his face became as bright as an angel’s.”
Why was Stephen chosen? Would you or I be chosen? I want to talk from my heart about what is the privilege of being a child of God. I do not anyone that bears the name of Christ to show forth his image. We are called by God to be His children but I sense sometimes we act less holy than we should because we fail to live up to what we know to be the truth.
All the goodness in living begins first obeying rules, in keeping commandments. The Christian life is one marked with the simplest obedience. The way to become skillful is to do things repeatedly, until we can do them perfectly, and without thought or effort. The way to become able to do great things is to do our little things with endless repetition, and with increasing liveliness and carefulness. The way to grow into Christ likeness of character is to watch ourselves in the tiniest things of thought and word and act, until we are capable to do without having to give much thought in our lives as what is the moral, right and holy to do to be like Christ. God’s will is that we be like Christ. So it does matter what we believe but it should show up in our actions and words. To become prayerful, we must learn to pray. To pray we cannot just read prayers that other have written. We must learn to talk to God through Jesus. We must spend time if we are going to do this right. Does it not say in the book of Luke that Jesus often went alone to pray? How do you rate your prayer life?
How much time to we give to devotions in reading His Word and praying? We cannot be like someone that we do not spend time with. Your life is going to show whom you spend time with. When I spend time with people, I can tell right away, who they spend time with. They let me know by the words they say and the attitude they have and the actions they do whom they are serving.
We only grow into patience by being as patient as we can, daily and hourly, and in smallest matters, ever learning to be more and more patient until we reach having that as a fruit of the Spirit.
We can only grow better by being determined to be better than we already are.
I want to share with you General Booth of the Salvation Army had ten rules for Christian living. To let them help us to see the blessing we need to be as His children.
1. We are to Consider our bodies as temples of the Holy Spirit and treat them with esteem and care. How many have shortened their lives because they did not treat their bodies right? How many of us weigh more than we should. How many of us do not exercise like we should? How many of us work to hard and do not give our body the rest they should? Do we really believe that God created us in his image and that He cares about our physical appearance? 1 Cor 3:16-173 “Don’t you know that you yourselves are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit lives in you? If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him; for God’s temple is sacred, and you are that temple.” This is God’s Word and not some thing that I made up.
6:19-20 “Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore, honor God with your body.” Too many think they can live as they please but this verse tells us that God has bought us back from the evilness that is in the world.
2 Cor 6:16 “What agreement is there between the temple of God and idols? For we are the temple of the living God. As God has said: "I will live with them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they will be my people."
Are you keeping your body as a temple that God is pleased with?
2. We need to Keep our minds active. Rm 8:5-8 “Those who live according to the sinful nature have their minds set on what that nature desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires. The mind of sinful man is death, but the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace; the sinful mind is hostile to God. It does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so. Those controlled by the sinful nature cannot please God.” This is simple to understand that we live but what we let control our minds.
Rom 12:2 “Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is his good, pleasing and perfect will.” We have to choose to have our minds renewed. What do you do to renew your mind?
Phil 4:4-7“Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” Rejoice in the Lord is the key given here.
Col 3:1-12 “Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry. Now you must rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, hatred, slander, and filthy language from your lips. Do not lie to each other and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator. Clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience.
2 PT1:13-16 “Therefore, prepare your minds for action; be self-controlled; set your hope fully on the grace to be given you when Jesus Christ is revealed. As obedient children, do not conform to the evil desires you had when you lived in ignorance. But just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do, for it is written, "Be holy, because I am holy." The mind is a terrible thing to waste.
3. We need to Take time to be holy with daily Bible reading and prayer. Gal 6:6-7 “Anyone who receives instruction in the word must share all good things. Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows.” If we do not read Gods’ word and take time to be holy we will live a life less than God intended for it to be.
Col 3:16-17 “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom, and as you sing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs with gratitude in your hearts to God. And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.” The word of God in our minds leads us to live right
4. We are to Support the church with our resources. Mal 3:6-10 "I the LORD do not change. So you, O descendants of Jacob, are not destroyed. Ever since the time of your forefathers you have turned away from my decrees and have not kept them. Return to me, and I will return to you," says the LORD Almighty. "But you ask, `How are we to return?’ "Will a man rob God? Yet you rob me. "But you ask, `How do we rob you?’ "In tithes and offerings. You are under a curse--the whole nation of you--because you are robbing me. Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this," says the LORD Almighty, "and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that you will not have room enough for it.” This is the only promise we have in the Bible in which God says, “test me” and see.
1 COR 16: 9 “On the first day of every week, each one of you should set aside a sum of money in keeping with his income, saving it up, so that when I come no collections will have to be made.” This tells us we should be prepared to give as the offering is taken. Were you ready to give?
5. we are instructed Cultivate the presence of God. 1 Thess 3:13 “May he strengthen your hearts so that you will be blameless and holy in the presence of our God and Father when our Lord Jesus comes with all his holy ones.” Jesus is coming and this verse says we can be holy and blameless at His coming. We must live in His presence all the time.
I JN 3:9 “This then is how we know that we belong to the truth, and how we set our hearts at rest in his presence.” Do you have peace in your heart because you are in his presence.
JD 24 “To him who is able to keep you from falling and to present you before his glorious presence without fault and with great joy.” Without fault and with great joy is ours by His presence.
6. We are to let God into the details of our life. Rm 8:35-39 “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? In all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” There is nothing that can separate us from the love of God.
1 Cor 1:3-4 “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God.” We are comforted to comfort others.
7. We are to Pray for this troubled world and the leaders who hold the destiny of the nations. 1 Tim 2:1-3 “I urge, then, first of all, that requests, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for everyone for kings and all those in authority, that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness. This is good, and pleases God our Savior.” As we pray for those in authority, God gives us peace. I have not seen to many in peace who hold protests.
8. We need to have a thankful spirit for the blessings of God. Nine time we are told in Matthew 5 that we are blessed.
PR 10 22 “The blessing of the LORD brings wealth, and he adds no trouble to it even life forevermore.”
EZ 34:26 I will bless them and I will send down showers in season; there will be showers of blessing.
MAL 3:3-7“Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love, he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves. In him, we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace. Here is the Gospel in a few words.
EPH 1: 3-4 “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight.”
RM 4:7-8 "Blessed are they whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man whose sin the Lord will never count against him." We are blesses as much as we allow ourselves to be.
9. We are to Work as if everything depended upon WORK, and to pray as if everything depended upon work.
10. We should not Think of death as something to be frightened of, but as a great experience where loved ones are met and ambitions realized. JN 3:14-15 “We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love our brothers. Anyone who does not love remains in death. Anyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life in him.”
2 TIM 1: 14How much more, then, will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself unblemished to God, cleanse our consciences from acts that lead to death, so that we may serve the living God!
HB 9:10but it has now been revealed through the appearing of our Savior, Christ Jesus, who has destroyed death and has brought life and immortality to light through the gospel.”
TO THE THIRD AND FOURTH GENERATION
Max Jukes lived in New York. He did not believe in Christ or in Christian training. He refused to take his children to church, even when they asked to go. He has had 1,026 descendants; 300 were sent to prison for an average term of thirteen years; 190 were public prostitutes; 680 were admitted alcoholics. His family, thus far, has cost the state in excess of $420,000. They made no contribution to society.
Jonathan Edwards lived in the same state, at the same time as Jukes. He loved the Lord and saw that his children were in church every Sunday, as he served the Lord to the best of his ability. He has had 929 descendants, and of these 430 were ministers; 86 became university professors; 13 became university presidents; 75 authored good books; 7 were elected to the United States Congress. One was vice president of his nation. His family never cost the state one cent but has contributed immeasurably to the life of plenty in this land today.
We have talked about living with the privileges of being child of God. May God help us to see it is only as we live whole-heartedly for Him that life will be what it should.
