2012 08 05 What do you do everyday?
Can you tell me something you do every day?
Read the paper/Brush Teeth / Eat / Drink / Breathe
There are some things that are essential to everyday living.
And there are some things that are not.
If I don't read a newspaper everyday it will not effect my life that much.
If someone does not clean their teeth - others may be more effected than they are!
Our bodies can go without food for far longer than they can operate without breath!
So What is important to you each day?
Is there anything else you do every day?
There are four things that the Bible suggests are important for us to do every day:
we need to pray
we need to praise and worship God
we need to love and serve God and
we need to love and serve each other.
Now how often you pray and how often you praise may vary from day to day - but they should still happen every day.
How often you serve may also vary and that often depends more on how we feel than on what we know God expects us to do.
Often we can start a day with the best intentions.
We decide, today is the day I will pray more,
or, today is the day I will read my Bible more.
or, today is the day I will praise God more.
or, today is the day I will show my love for God by serving others in some way....
We start the day with the best intentions,
and then we find it's time for bed
and we did'nt actually spend any time doing what we could have done.
Often life gets in the way,
often we let life get in the way,
in fact sometime we make sure that life gets in the way,
then we have an excuse for not doing what we know God wanted us to do.
We can try and do stuff in our own strength,
or we can allow the Holy Spirit to empower us to do stuff in the strength of the Lord.
We can choose to do things our way or we can do things God's way.
We know God's way is the right way, we know that God's way is the best way.
But...
But, sometimes, no, often, often we would rather do it our way.
Friends the truth is we should desire to follow God's way everyday.
To seek His will, to seek His glory.
To serve Him in faith and love.
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This month as part of our Fresh Fire Series we are looking at The Holy Spirit in Everyday Living.
To focus our attention let me read to you from Colossians 1:3-14:
3 We always pray for you, and we give thanks to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. 4 For we have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and your love for all of God’s people, 5 which come from your confident hope of what God has reserved for you in heaven. You have had this expectation ever since you first heard the truth of the Good News.
6 This same Good News that came to you is going out all over the world. It is bearing fruit everywhere by changing lives, just as it changed your lives from the day you first heard and understood the truth about God’s wonderful grace.
7 You learned about the Good News from Epaphras, our beloved co-worker. He is Christ’s faithful servant, and he is helping us on your behalf. 8 He has told us about the love for others that the Holy Spirit has given you.
9 So we have not stopped praying for you since we first heard about you. We ask God to give you complete knowledge of his will and to give you spiritual wisdom and understanding. 10 Then the way you live will always honor and please the Lord, and your lives will produce every kind of good fruit. All the while, you will grow as you learn to know God better and better.
11 We also pray that you will be strengthened with all his glorious power so you will have all the endurance and patience you need. May you be filled with joy, 12 always thanking the Father. He has enabled you to share in the inheritance that belongs to his people, who live in the light. 13 For he has rescued us from the kingdom of darkness and transferred us into the Kingdom of his dear Son, 14 who purchased our freedom and forgave our sins. (Colossians 3:1-14)
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As I said - This month as part of our Fresh Fire Series we are looking at The Holy Spirit in Everyday Living.
And if we call ourselves Christian,
if we have placed our trust in Jesus as our Saviour and Lord,
if we really love God - then Everyday in our relationship with Him is important.
The way we live our lives each day, every day, is a reflection of how much we trust God.
The way we live our lives each day, every day, is a reflection of how much we love God.
The way we live our lives each day, every day, is a reflection of the place God actually has in our lives.
God is meant to have first place, every day, not just on a Sunday.
God is not an after thought.
God is not just something to fill the few gaps in our life that are not occupied with worldly things.
God is meant to be our focus, our purpose, our reason, the centre of our life.
Is God your focus?
Is serving God in love your main purpose?
Is God the centre of your life?
Do you allow the Holy Spirt to work in you and through you Every Day?
What do you do Every Day that shows to the World that you are a Child of God?
What do you do Every Day that shows God has a place in your life?
Do you honour God… here on Sundays…
or During the week with your colleagues at work
Do your friends see that God has the most important place in your life?
Does your family see any spiritual significance in your life?
How involved do you allow God to be in your day?
Our Every Day perspective of God is important.
The way we spend every day is important.
We divide up our days into hours, minutes and seconds, but how much time do we actually set aside for God?
How much time do you set aside for God?
Not how much time you would like to set aside... Not how much time do you intend to set aside...
How much time do you actually set aside
Every Day for God?
If you think about how you set aside time,
there is a difference between what is necessary and what is essential,
there is a difference between what we see as necessary and unnecessary,
a difference between the spiritual and the secular.
How you divide your time every day influences how you live every day.
How you divide your time shows the importance God actually has in your life.
Does God have the central place in your life Every Day?
The way you organise your life,
where you place God in your life,
effects your faith and your spiritual growth every day.
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Let me ask you something that may seem a strange question:
How many lives do you live?
How many lives do you live?
Are you living two lives?
Do you have one life for a couple of hours on a Sunday and another life for the 166 of the 168 hours in the week.
In your non-Sunday life do you live in a way that God has little or no involvement in your life?
Every day, EVERY DAY, we are meant to make time for God.
Every Day we are to allow God the opportunity to bless us, to use us, to empower us.
Every day we need the Holy Spirit to lead us and guide us.
Every Day we need to make time for God.
Every day we need to build on the foundations of our faith in God.
Every day we need to grow closer to Him.
Throughout the Bible there is evidence of the need to spend time with God, learning about Him, drawing closer to Him.
In our schedules we may set aside speciifc time for ‘religious’ activities - when we need to set aside time to develop our relationship with God.
Sometimes we can rely so heavily on our corporate worship that we neglect our personal relationship with God,
The truth is we need to integrate our commitment to Christ into Every Day of our week - not just Sunday.
God is meant to have first place.
Not second place - not last place - First place.
What evidence is there evidence that God has first place in your life...
Throughout the week across our group of churches there are many different meetings and activities that you could be involved in...
Prayer meetings, growth groups, alpha courses...
How many of them actually make it on to your schedule?...
How much effort do you actually put into learning more about God?
How much effort do you put into spending time with God's people?
Do you have the same level of effort when it comes to your hobbies or social activities?
Where is your emphasis Every Day?
This Tuesday we have a 20:20 here at Rayleigh - we are going to focus on what is intercessory prayer and how we can hear from God when we pray?
Is that on your schedule?
Have you set aside the time or will you be somewhere else?
We all have pressures in life - we all have responsibilities - and our tendency can often be to put other things before God.
We need to keep our focus on God bnecause we are called to Love God with all our heart.
The way we focus our lives Every Day shows what our real commitment to God is - Every Day.
Life may bring its challenges but we should never compromise our relationship with God.
There is certainly wondeful about time focused on God in worship and prayer.
Jesus often spent time in prayer connecting with Father God, drawing close to Him, engaging with Him, Listening to Him.
Jesus spent time in personal and corporate worship, if He did it then we must also do it.
Every Day we are to spend time with God.
Every Day our schedule should reflect God's priorities for our lives.
Every Day we need to involve God in every aspect of our lives.
Romans 12:1 in The Message Bible Says:
So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your
sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering.
Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him.
Embrace God every day.
Allow the Holy Spirit to help you every day.
Your ordinary days, and your extra ordinary days, your good days and your bad days.
Every Day.
Manage the time God has Given you to include time for God.
Plan your schedule to spend time in His presence.
Draw closer to Him Every Day, use all of the resources God has given you for spiritual growth.
Every Day understand that you have a specific purpose - and that purpose is to honour God with your life.
In closing let me challenge you to Place God at the center of your life Every Day.
Will you allow the Holy Spirit to help you place God first in your life?
I don’t know what things compete for your time and energy Every Day.
I don't know what demands space in your life.
Often it’s things that we choose to allow to take up space - things we give permission to.
TV, is important to a lot of people.
Being entertained is considered a right in our
culture.
Some peoples’ lives revolve around watching their favorite shows, TV is the centre of some peoples’ lives.
For some, life revolves around money and its worries.
For some it's taking care of the family.
People we love have needs and problems and we want to help.
We want to make a difference, to lighten the load.
Sometimes people live for their work. The most important thing in life is that they do the job well.
Whatever it may be that your life currently revolves around, let me encourage you to place God at the Centre of your life Every Day.
