What Does God Really Want from Me? Part 2

Connect to God's People through Authentic Relationships

Matthew 9:9; 1 John 4:19-21; Galatians 5:13; Psalm 68:5-6.

This sermon was preached by Pastor Marty Bonner on Sunday, January 23, 2022. 

Today, we continue on part 2 of God’s desire for us to come into relationship with Him.  We are using the word “connect” to focus on two aspects of this relationship with God. 

We first connect to God through whole-life worship.  This can only be done through Jesus because He is God’s answer for the world.  However, in connecting to Jesus, we must also connect to his other followers through authentic relationships.

Let’s look at our first passage.

Who are these guys?

Matthew 9:9 shows Jesus coming to the tax collection booth and calling Matthew to follow him.  Matthew had most likely heard about Jesus.  However, Matthew was an outcast within Israel because he was collaborating with the Romans to tax his people, and at oppressive rates.

In short order, Matthew leaves his post to follow Jesus.  It is hard to know what he was thinking.  However, we do know that Jesus had already called the four fishermen: Peter, Andrew, James, and John back in chapter four. 

Now, leaving our old way of thinking or living and following Jesus is an individual command from Christ, but it doesn’t take long to figure out that he has other people who are following him already.  Who are these guys?

In fact, it was most probable that Matthew had been taking tax money from these guys.  That must have been an awkward moment.  I can hear Peter saying something like this.  “What’s he doing here?”  You see, you can’t follow Jesus without having to deal with his other followers.

There are various reasons why people may not want to connect with other Christians.  Matthew doesn’t get to choose who his fellow disciples are, and the fishermen also get no vote.  All of them had been chosen by Jesus.

I know; I know.  What about Judas?  I think that Judas is the Lord’s business.  My business is to surrender to Jesus as the master.  Yes, there are hypocrites and traitors in the Church, but are you a perfect hypocrite detector, and does your “alarm” go off when you are around yourself?

I don’t want to overly simplify this issue, but at its core is the truth that none of us are perfectly like Jesus.  We have that in common, and we have chosen to follow Jesus, another thing in common.  Peter and the others most likely didn’t want Matthew in the group, but it isn’t their choice.  Their choice is how they will treat Matthew, and how he will treat them.

Calling the bluff

If Jesus was some kind of gang leader, then he might not care how we interact with each other.  He could just chalk it up to “the strong survive.”  However, Jesus does care how we treat one another.  He commanded his disciples to love one another, and John passes this on to us in 1 John 4:19-21

Part of why Jesus does this is to call our bluff.  To bluff is a term that comes from betting at poker, so it might seem inappropriate to refer to God calling our bluff.  However, in this case, it is we who can be playing a game and God waking us up to the fact that He is not playing a game.

It is easier to say that we love God and want to follow Jesus, but loving other real-live people who fall short of being Jesus is much tougher.  Or, is it?  I don’t know if Judas ever seriously followed Jesus as the answer.  He may have at first, but then realized that Jesus wasn’t going to do what he wanted.

Now, it is bad enough that Jesus expects us to accept others into the group, but then Jesus goes further and commands us to love one another.  John says in this passage that you can’t love God whom you can’t see while you hate your brother whom you can see.  God created your brother, and He hasn’t written him off yet.  So, you either love that about God or you don’t.  Which is it?  Your brother is actually the litmus test that reveals just how much we actually love God.

Talking about love is easy.  It’s the doing that is the hard part.  If I love God, then I must learn to love my brother also.

In Galatians 5:13, Paul takes this a step forward because loving someone is not a command to have a feeling.  To love others is to be committed to their well-being.  If you are committed to their good, then you will help them in different ways as God leads you.

Paul emphasizes that Jesus has given us freedom, not a list of what you have to do to others.  Making a list would be easy, but it would miss the point.  We often make a list because it allows us to pretend like we have loved our brother when all along we are resisting that one thing that Jesus is prompting us to do.  You have been set free by Christ.  Now, use that freedom to serve one another in love, out of a motive for their good.

We will look at this purpose of serving later.

So, that’s the question I have to put to myself.  Am I bluffing?  Jesus calls us to follow him and serve his other followers out of love.  This is the true test to loving Christ.  Do I love him enough to love those whom he asks me to love?

God is not into pretense, fantasy, and mimicry.  He wants a relationship with you that is built upon reality, truth, and the very core of your being.  Can you give him that?  Perhaps none of us can actually answer that question up front.  Perhaps all we can do is say, “I love you, Lord; help my lack of love!”  That is a disciple that the Lord can work with.

Our need for family

You wouldn’t be on t his planet without family.  By definition, there is a couple who gave birth to you, your parents.  This is how God has designed us.  Its part of our nature.

Yet, another part of our nature is that we are born helpless to a couple who have been enabled by God to be helpful.  Babies need both a father and a mother to come alongside of them and prepare them for an adult life in this world, and to teach them h ow to connect to their Heavenly Father.

In a sinful world, families can be pretty messy, but we have a duty to our biological family.  The best-case scenario is that your parents were followers of Jesus and your family is more than biologically connected.

The reality is that we need spiritual family even more than we need biological family.  Yes, it is incredibly important when the biological family is failed, but if you have an incredibly close-knit biological family, then your family still needs spiritual family around you too.

David wrote Psalm 68.  He knew what it was to be pushed away by family.  His brothers looked down on him, and then King Saul had attempted to kill him, which had pushed him out of Israel.  David refused to lose his inheritance in Israel because God had given it to him.  He stuck in there when the “family” of Israel wasn’t so lovely.  In fact, David’s story is one of loving people for God’s sake when they aren’t so loveable.

David pictures God in these verses with language from the family.  God is the Father of those who have no father, orphans.  He is the defender of widows who have no defender.  God sets the person who is by themselves within a family.  Wow, what a picture.

If your biological family is great and they love Jesus, you still need to make room and time for a larger community of followers of Christ.  God never intended for us to be isolated as individuals, or as singular families.

Our eternal destiny is founded upon God the Father’s heart for us.  He wants you in His forever-family.  He has paid the price to win your freedom so that you can be adopted into it.

The abundant life that flows from Jesus into our hearts teaches us how to love and serve one another, even when it requires repentance and forgiveness.

We are told that the rebellious will dwell in a dry land.  Ours is a very dry land today.  People are spiritually dying of thirst, and it is God’s word that they need, Jesus that they need.  Yet, it is easy for them to look at a cup of spiritual water and push it away.  Their condition can be so bad that they believe it is no good. 

Let’s be a people who are trusting that Jesus can take care of his family.  It is my job to simply be a loving family member by serving my brothers and sisters in love.  God help us!

Connect 2 audio

What Does God Really Want from Me?

Connect to Christ through Whole Life Worship

John 4:23-24; Matthew 11:28-30; John 15:2-4; 2 Corinthians 5:17; Romans 8:14-17.

This sermon was preached by Pastor Marty Bonner on Sunday, January 16, 2020.

We are starting a series that looks at what God really wants from us.  It really is a simple answer.  Ultimately, God wants you yourself.  He simply wants us.

Of course, there is more to it than that, so we will take some time to walk through the issues and remind ourselves just how much God loves us.  We will also remind ourselves how much we should follow Jesus without wavering.

Let’s look at our first passage.

Whole Life Worship

In John 4, Jesus is speaking with the Samaritan woman by a well.  She is stuck in the old arguments between her people and the Jews over where the proper place to worship is.  She had unknowingly inherited lies in this matter. 

The history of the Samaritans went back to the beginning of the 7^th Century BC when the Assyrians conquered the Northern Kingdom and deported them.  Other nations were brought to that area and told to live there.  Due to attacks from lions, and terrible things happening, the people complain to the Assyrian king that they don’t know how to please the god of this land.  So, the king sends some of the Israelite priests back to teach them how to please Yahweh.  Of course, they had been kicked out of the land because God was not pleased with their idol worship.  What transpired over the next century was an amalgamation of religious beliefs that rejected everything but the first 5 books of Moses, and they eventually promoted Mt. Gerizim as the place to worship- even built a temple there.

Now, the Jews were right about where to worship, but they were not without their own problems.  Where did they miss the boat?  The place of worship was important only because God had given them a command regarding it.  However, the worship itself was far more important to God than the place of it.  Jesus tells the Samaritan woman that God is looking for people who will worship Him in spirit and in truth.

So, what is worship?  Worship is everything we do to show God that He is the worthiest, most valuable Being in the Universe.  In fact, everything you do is showing what is valuable to you.  Everyone’s life holds something most valuable to them.  They may waver from one thing to the next, but they still value something higher than all else. 

The question is this.  Is it really God the Father that you worship?  Two people can both go to church.  For one it is all about showing God His value, but to the other it may be about being seen as a good, righteous person.  God is looking for people who truly want Him above all else.  You see why I said that He ultimately wants you?

Like Hagar in the wilderness, God saw this Samaritan woman.  She had clearly received religious teaching in her life, but she had not lived a very religious life.  Even then, much of what she had been taught was all lies.  God saw her and sent Jesus to speak truth into her life.  She needed to put her faith in the Messiah. 

Whole life worship of God the Father happens when we come to Jesus and connect to him spiritually by faith.  This spiritual connection will stir up other purposes that God has for us in this spiritual life.  They are not grades or levels that we achieve.   God wants us to connect to Him and His people, grow to be like Jesus, serve one another selflessly, and to share Jesus with those who do not know.  Notice that the Samaritan woman ends up connecting to Jesus and then sharing about him to other in the same day.  It would be hard to say that she hadn’t become more like Jesus by the end of the day, and she clearly served him. 

Over the next weeks, we are going to walk through these four purposes and draw out what God really wants from us.

The Call (Matthew 11:28-30)

Connecting to God is not mechanical like hitching a trailer to a truck.  It is organic like having a relationship with someone.  Jesus is the voice of God saying, “I’m here and I’m seeking a relationship with you.  I designed you to have relationship with Me!”  In Jesus, God shows us that we are valuable to Him, very valuable. 

In this passage, Jesus is inviting, or calling, to anyone who has grown weary of life.  He understands that life in this world without a living relationship with God is hard.  This world is a heavy taskmaster. 

Yet, Jesus doesn’t promise to make our life easy.  Instead, he will take your old burden and give you a lighter burden, even a better burden, to carry.  This world loves to load us up with heavy burdens and sometimes we can be the worst taskmasters to ourselves.  However, Jesus cares about your soul.  The burden that he has for you will feel light compared to the one you carry before coming to him.  It will give you rest for your weary soul.

The Connection (John 15:2-4)

Jesus has made an offer of relationship with you, but it is through the act of putting your faith in him that you actually make a connection.

Jesus pictures it as a branch that is connected to a vine.  The natural connection that we can see is symbolic of a spiritual connection that happens between us and Jesus whenever a we believe in him.  That real and living connection allows the life of Jesus to flow into our soul and spread out into our life.  The fruit of a person who is in a relationship of faith in Jesus is all kinds of life, even in the midst of hardship and death.  It is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

Because it is a connection of faith, it must be maintained by faith.  It must persevere until the end.  So, recognize that this world has a counter-call that promises all kinds of “life,” but in the end such life is gravel in the mouth.

God actually cares about you, created you, and wants to help you to continually become more than you are.  This world sees you as a useful tool, a cog in the machine.  A cog that can be replaced if it doesn’t fit the ideas of the modern “aristocracy,” the “elite.”

A New Creation (1 Corinthians 5:17; Romans 8:14-17)

When a person puts their faith in Jesus, they really become a new creation, a new person.  I am leaving the old thinking and the old way of living behind, and I am beginning a new life of trusting the thinking and way of living that Jesus teaches.

Of course, the counter-call of the world means that I still have to maintain my rejection of the old and my embracing of the new every day.  Sometimes people get down the road of following Christ and they feel like its not what they thought it would be.  This can be because we aren’t treating it as a living connection that is a relationship.  You have to maintain relationships for them to last and to be fruitful.  The old you will always be calling, like an old friend from high school saying, “Don’t you want to go back and have some fun?”

Listen, coming to Christ is not about your feelings, and getting things from God.  It is about being adopted into His forever-family.  Those who are in His forever-family are given His Holy Spirit to come alongside of them and to help them.  He leads us and teaches us if we will listen and talk with Him through reading God’s Word and prayer.  It is about trusting The One who cannot and noes not lie.  He wants you in His family.  That ‘s what we were made for and why the Bible says that we were made in His image.  We aren’t gods, but we are able to be adopted into His family as His children.  That is an amazing destiny.

If we are His children, then we will inherit everything with Jesus as Romans 8:17 states.  Forget about the wealth of the world, and the power of this age.  All of these things are destined to be destroyed.  However, we who believe in Jesus are destined to step into a universe untainted by sinfulness, and full of beautiful potential.  Of course, this life is still important.  It is this life which gives us opportunity to be in His family!

Connect to Christ audio

The Risk of Spiritual Negligence- Part 2

1 Corinthians 9:24-27.  This sermon was preached by Pastor Marty Bonner on January 09, 2022.

Last week, we looked at the issue of spiritual negligence.  This is what we shouldn’t do.  The positive is to emphasize spiritual attentiveness and discipline.

There were three areas that we are told not to neglect.  First, we must not neglect our salvation, our faith in Christ and our love for Him.  We must maintain these at all costs.  Second, we must not neglect God’s Word.  We must become a student of the Word of the Creator.  Whose books in all of the Universe can compare to His?  Third, we must not neglect the gifts of the Holy Spirit that are in each of us.  You must pay attention and learn how the Spirit is gifting you to strengthen others.  You should exercise that gift by faith and by His direction.  You must also recognize God’s gifts in others that He is using to strengthen you.

In all of these, we risk eternal things.  To be negligent in these areas is to risk deception, weakness, knowledge, salvation, even our very souls.

Today, we will finish up this issue by looking at two metaphors that Paul gives to the Church in Corinth.

Let’s look at our passage.

Metaphors of spiritual things

Paul wrote several letters to the Corinthian Church.  He had a heavy burden for them because they were not thinking biblically about how they were living.  In short, they were clearly not using the mind of Christ.  They were using the mindset of the Greek culture within which they were immersed.

One of the big areas is being dealt with in this chapter of 1 Corinthians.  They are stuck making decisions based upon what they think their rights are, rather than out of love for one another.  Paul uses several examples of himself throughout the chapter to help them see how the mind of Christ thinks, and the kinds of choices it will make.

One area was material support of ministers.  Paul taught churches to care materially for those who care for them spiritually.  However, he would not receive that “right” from the Corinthian Church.  If he thought like them, then he would be demanding that they send him money or help in some manner.  However, Paul was purposefully sacrificing this right.  In fact, other churches were sometimes helping Paul so that he could minister to the Corinthians.  Paul also worked as a tent maker and mender.  He did this out of love for them.  Corinth was full of teachers who would come into town, put out a shingle, and make money by teaching some new philosophy to people.  Most of the time, this philosophy would be of precious little help to those receiving it, but the teacher made a good living off of it.  Paul was aware of these things and cared about the Gospel and the Corinthians too much to even let a hint of such be in his dealings with them.  Yes, he had the right, but love compelled him to choose the harder path for their sakes.

Paul also mentions that he had every right to get married and have a family like Peter and some of the other apostles.  However, Paul had chosen to remain unmarried so that he could focus all of his time on sharing the Gospel.  This is not to put down Peter.  Peter was already married when Christ called him.  Paul’s point is more about how he has chosen to sacrifice a right that he had out of love and for God’s purposes in the lives of others, like them.

To help them absorb this lesson in a way that came from their own Greek culture, Paul shares an analogy from the sports that Greeks loved to watch and to do.

The first Metaphor is also the main metaphor.  In verse 24 Paul speaks of a runner who runs a race.  All runners who enter a race hope to win the prize, but only one of them will.  In verse 26, Paul adds another metaphor in passing, that of boxing.  Boxers punch each other until one of them yields, passes out, or dies (as was the goal in some matches).

Now, it doesn’t take an Olympic coach to figure out the basics of becoming a good runner or a good boxer.  With these metaphors in mind, Paul points out areas of neglect in the Christian’s life that would be as foolish as if an athlete had done them, or neglected them.

Verse 25 shows that we must not neglect our training, which is self-discipline in essence.  Athletes live in very specific ways.  They eat and don’t eat certain foods.  The same with drink.  They will run or box everyday working on the fundamentals of their sport until it becomes locked into their muscle memory.  They will fastidiously adhere to quite rigid rules that they have set for themselves, or their coach, in order to obtain the goal, winning. 

If athletes are willing to train so diligently in order to obtain a temporal prize, shouldn’t Christians be even more diligent in our spiritual training in order to obtain an eternal prize?  How much more should we bring our bodies and lives under subjection (vs. 27) so that we can spiritually win?  The answer is rhetorical, but easy to dismiss as if it is not that important.

It is amazing how many hours we can spend on entertainments, or on books of some value, but not in comparison to God’s Word.  We can simply tell ourselves that it is far more fun watching a football game then studying God’s Word.  When I was in High School, I remember turning out for football.  It seemed that many of the best athletes were more interested in drinking beer than even coming out for the team.  Of course, others came out for the team, but were more focused on partying than training.  That directly affected what our football team was able to do.

How is your training?  Do you study God’s Word as if it was information from the Creator of all things that will help you win the prize that can be won in this life?  Or, do you spend more time on things that not only don’t help you, but become detrimental because you have “no time” for studying His Word.  “My people perish for lack of knowledge,” says our Lord!

God help us to stop wasting the time that we have outside of work and sleep on temporary things that won’t matter several years from now.  Don’t get me wrong.  We are supposed to do the temporary for eternal purposes, which redeems it.  Our very lives are the definition of temporary, but they can be lived for eternal glory!  The only way you can and will do that is if you are serious about your spiritual training in Christ, being a disciple.

But, reading and meditating on God’s Word is not enough.  We must put it into practice.  Training is all about getting ready for the race or for the boxing match.  However, in life we don’t have a schedule and don’t know when these things will occur.  In some way, we are tested every day.  Life is a series of pop-quizzes, or “pop-races.”  You are either ready or you aren’t, but at least at the end of the day you will know what you need to work on.  So, let’s look at those quizzes.

How is our running and our boxing?  Paul is telling us to run in such a way as to win the prize, called a crown in verse 25.  Am I doing well enough to win a crown?  The Bible speaks of believers winning crowns in several places of which this is one.

Finally, there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will give to me on that Day, and not to me only but also to all who have loved His appearing.  2 Timothy 4:8 (NKJV)

Blessed is the man who endures temptation; for when he has been approved, he will receive the crown of life which the Lord has promised to those who love Him.  James 1:12 (NKJV)

and when the Chief Shepherd appears, you will receive the crown of glory that does not fade away. 1 Peter 5:4 (NKJV)

Behold, I am coming quickly!  Hold fast what you have, that no one may take your crown.  Revelation 3:11 (NKJV)

That last word is from our Lord Himself.  Notice that God has that crown for you; it is obtainable.  But, you are going to have to go after it both in training and executing that training in the trials and bouts of life.

I don’t think that these are actually different crowns that we can stack up on top of each other, but rather, they are different ways of describing God’s crowning of His people.  I think we will have some kind of literal symbol of our win, but righteousness, life and glory are just different facets of that singular prize, reigning with Jesus!

There are different things that Paul points out about our running or boxing.  First, we are to run with certainty.  We are to know how we are to run and in what direction we are to run.  Christians are to be examples of God’s righteousness and are to be focused on pleasing the Father, not ourselves, or the world.  Too many Christians appear to be running away from God’s Word and towards the world.  This kind of running will not win the prize.

Second, a boxer doesn’t close their eyes and wail away at the air.  We must fight with a clear picture of reality, both the reality that is going on inside of me and the reality of our opponent.  We need to face reality so that we can fight in truth, not a fantasy fight, and with wisdom.  This reality includes my recognition that the most dangerous opponent is my own flesh.  A Christian who understands the reality of the weakness of their own flesh will train that flesh so that it will serve an eternal purpose rather than a temporal one.

Of course, elsewhere, Paul reminds us that our battle is not with flesh and blood, the people we encounter and tangle with.  Rather, our battle is with the spiritual powers that work on my mind and the minds of people around me in order to pull us away from the Lord.  May God help us to give the Devil a black-eye by training and then boxing him as the Lord leads the way.  In our own flesh, we are unable to stand against the Devil, but “greater is he that is in us, than he that is in the world!”

Spiritual Negligence Part 2 audio

The Risk of Spiritual Negligence

We apologize that there is not an audio available for this sermon.

Hebrews 2:1-4; 1 Timothy 4:13-16.  This sermon was preached by Pastor Marty Bonner on January 02, 2022.

Negligence is often defined as conduct that falls short of a reasonably prudent person.  Its antonym is attention.  A prudent person is one who is careful to think about things in order to choose as best a course as possible.

Notice that the bar is not set at the most prudent person, but at a reasonably prudent, or within reason.  Of course, this is a fairly abstract concept that begs a lot of questions.  Most people in a society may be unreasonably negligent due to a number of factors.  Thus, we are talking about more than what the average person would do.

God has gone out of His way to speak to us about the pitfalls of life and eternity.  The sooner that we learn to take that seriously, and give it the amount of thought and prudence it deserves, the better it will be for us and others around us.

Today, we will look at things that Christians can neglect, and the risks they run when doing so.  Let’s get into our first passage.

Don’t neglect your salvation

The writer to of this letter to the Hebrews was concerned about the appeal of the visible Old Testament rituals, compared to those of Christianity, which were more spiritual.  It was possible for Hebrew Christians to let sentimentality about the temple, its services, and its rituals draw them away from Christ.  Some even did apostatize, i.e., falling away from believing in Christ, and went back into Judaism.  This clearly was more of a problem before the destruction of the temple in AD 70 (almost 40 years).

The writer spends most of the letter showing how Christ and the spiritual worship of Christians was far superior to the Law of Moses.  Yet, some were in jeopardy of neglecting their salvation to the point of falling away.

Verse 3 reminds them that the salvation that they had been given through Christ was “such a great salvation.”  Jesus is the Savior of that salvation.  He was the first to reveal God’s plan of saving Israel and the Gentiles.  His disciples then became those who spoke the Gospel to Hebrews and Gentiles.

In verse 4, the writer reminds them of the great signs and wonders that even the apostles did.  Also, he reminds them of the pouring out of the Holy Spirit and His gifts that were spread among the people.

Now, what Israel received from Moses was a great salvation.  There is no doubt about it.  But when it is compared to what Jesus and the disciples had done, it falls short.  It is one thing to set someone free from physical slavery, but if they fall short of spiritual salvation, then their eternity is at stake.  Christ came to save us from our greatest enemy, which is sin and its resultant death.

If the Old Testament covenant had strict punishments for neglecting a temporary salvation, then how much more important is it for us not to neglect the New Covenant in Christ?  It is extremely important.  The risk is eternity.

In verse 1, they are told that they “must give the more earnest heed” to the Gospel that they had heard.  There are three parts to this.  “Must” speaks to necessity.  There is no option in this.  “The more earnest” speaks to a high level, and “heed” is a way of saying careful attention.  It literally means to bring something near for inspection and care.

So now, you and I have been told about God’s great salvation through Jesus Christ, and we have believed the message.  Yet, we must give a high level of care and inspection to that message and the result that it has given us.  So, let me ask this.  What has the greatest part of your attention in this life?  Do you give entertainments more attention than your own salvation?

The writer tells us what we risk at the end of verse 1.  We risk drifting away from our salvation, from the Savior.  Drifting has a sense that you lack aim and purpose.  You are just going wherever life and your flesh take you.  Even worse would be sailing away or driving away on purpose.  Whether drifting or purposefully leaving, it all starts at the same place: neglecting the truth and the greatness of what Christ has done for you.

Let’s look at another area of neglect in 1 Timothy 4.

Don’t neglect God’s Word

This passage actually lists a lot of things that we must not neglect, but they can be categorized in two areas.  First, we look at those things that have to do with God’s Word.

Verse 13 mentions reading.  We are to read the word individually, but we are to read it among our assemblies as well.  Literacy rates have not always been as high as they are in our country.  For many Christians, reading the word was impossible, but they could hear it and memorize it.  Make sure that you are not neglecting the reading and hearing of God’s Word on a daily basis, not just in Church. 

Next is exhortation.  This is not just a job for pastors, and it is more than telling others what to do.  It is related to the word for the Holy Spirit given in John, the Paraclete, the Helper.  It means to either come alongside someone, or to call them to your side, in order to speak a word of help into their lives.  It could be information, correction, direction, etc.  This sermon is an exhortation that is based upon God’s Word.

Next is teaching.  He is obviously talking about the teachings of Christ and his apostles.  We must pay attention and incorporate the teachings of Christ into our lives.

Lastly, in verse 15, he mentions meditation.  Christians do not meditate as the eastern mystics do.  We are not trying to empty our minds.  Rather, we fill our mind with God’s Word, and then mentally digest it through prayerful contemplation.  Don’t rush through this part.  It is commendable to read through the Bible in a year, which takes about 4 to 5 chapters a day.  However, it is also good to take a small “bite-size” piece and spend time before the Lord.  What did it mean to them, and what doe sit mean to me?  What are you saying, Lord?

Verse 16, again uses a word that tells us to pay attention, but especially to ourselves that we are continuing in, or keeping our life centered upon the teaching of God’s Word.  It is not enough to know a lot about the Word of God, and yet, not put it into practice.  Faith that is alive will act on the teachings of Christ and his apostles.

If we do this then verse 16 says that we will save ourselves and those who we speak to.  In a sense, neglecting the Word of God, then leads to us neglecting our salvation, which leads to us drifting away from the Lord Jesus, our Savior.

Don’t neglect the giftings of God’s Spirit

The second category mentioned in this passage that we can neglect is the gifts of God’s Spirit.

1 Corinthians 12:11 tells us that the Spirit of God gives to each believer in Christ spiritual gifts as He wills.  The word for gift is literally, “the resultant of God’s grace.”  The question is what is that result?  They are clearly supernatural giftings with which the Spirit of God enables each believer.  These gifts are seen as a result of God pouring out His grace through the Spirit.  These are not the result of natural capabilities, but an enabling and instigating that comes from the Holy Spirit.

If you are a believer in Jesus Christ, then you should be both praying for the Holy Spirit to instigate gifts within you, and walking by faith in those giftings as you discover them.

The whole purpose of a spiritual gift is not about you.  It is always about helping the Body of Christ in some way.

None of us would have come to Christ without the gifts of the Spirit working in others.  It takes time to recognize and grow in our own spiritual gifts.  God will use mature believers around you to help you come to understand His giftings in your life.

Next week, we will continue looking at the things that that we must not neglect.  I pray that we will all avoid the risks of spiritual negligence, and instead, focus upon Christ and truly be his disciples.