7O HOUR CHALLENGE
Sunday, Pastor Troy issued a 70 hour challenge to everyone attending church and those tuning in on RAVEN TV...read the bible through in 70 hours. He will have some way to keep track of it i guess. This is one of many opportunities Pastor Troy has offered people over the 2+ years i have known him. Opportunities to come to know our God intimately. To live a life of holiness and righteousness. Sanctified and set apart for God. Opportunities to live for him 24/7 and not just in church on Sunday or an occasional hour of Bible Study, or a quick 10 minute prayer or devotion in the morning or evening, or grace at a meal. But living this life God gave us for Jesus 24/7, every day, every hour, every minute, every second. "Redeeming the time, because the days are evil." Ephesians 5:16 "Speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord. Giving thanks always for ALL things unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ" Ephesians 5:19-20. Who is doing that? i would venture to guess no one. Including me. There can be hundreds of opportunities to help us know God and Jesus his son, but if we do not make the effort, it falls on us. "Therefore to him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin" James 4:17.
Our fruit speaks for itself. Are we walking in the power of the Holy Spirit (Acts 1:8)? Are people healed when our shadow passes by (Acts 5:15)? Do the blind see, and the lame walk, and the mute speak (Luke 7:22-23), as the evidence of Godly sorrow to repentance in their lives (2 Corinthians 7:9-10)? i don't think so but i believe this is the way it should be. Why isn't it? i believe it is because our life is not a constant offering of prayer, obedience, Bible reading and laying down our lives for his will. Because we do not feel the urgency of the hour. Because we do not know him intimately as we should.
What's that? Life is too busy you say? Really? Too busy for praying without ceasing? Yes, this is the compromise we all face and are guilty of. God is not first in ALL we do and say and think. He regretfully is not. But He must be, he has got to be, and herein lies the problem.
i have been here in Florida for one year come the 14th of August. i have learned much and know i fall short of what God wants in my daily life and in the lives of all followers of Jesus. To daily Follow Him, daily deny self and pick up the cross. To daily hide his word in my heart. To daily hear him as he searches my heart for any wicked way within. To daily search the Scriptures. To daily deepen my relationship with him and bring what i know to a lost and dying world. DAILY, DAILY, DAILY. Daily means every second of every day. "Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away. And take heed to yourselves, lest at any time your hearts be overcharged with surfeiting, and drunkenness, and cares of this life, and so that day come upon you unawares. For as a snare shall it come on all them that dwell on the face of the whole earth. Watch ye therefore, and pray always, that ye may be accounted worthy to escape all these things that shall come to pass, and to stand before the Son of man. " John 21:33-36
Satan's world is a world of distraction and entertainment to the death of the soul. i have endeavored to be a daily reader of the Word of God and to take it to work and play and fellowship. It is not easy, but it is the only way. We are in a world of sin and death, the Devil will be given free reign soon upon the earth as God's saints are called home. "For as in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark, And knew not until the flood came, and took them all away; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be." Matthew 24:38-39
This life, which is in us, The eternal life we were give by the blood of Jesus, is a gift by the grace and mercy of God. Born into the sin nature and destined for hell, we are set free by the Blood of the Lamb "But now being made free from sin, and become servants to God, ye have your fruit unto holiness, and the end everlasting life." Romans 6:22. Free, (John 8:35), but with that freedom comes responsibility to the life of ministers of reconciliation (2 Corinthians 5:18) we are given. Obedience to the ambassadorship (2 Corinthians 5:20) bestowed on us. An individual lifetime is so fleeting and so short, and the things of the world are given far too much importance when viewed in the scope of eternity. What is important to God is not what we think is important. How many things during a day do we put before God and his will for us? For each moment there is the will of God and our self will. For each moment there is an eternal choice and a worldly choice, for each moment there is the divine nature and the sin nature. Each moment has got to be taken seriously. Bored? Pray or read the word and see what God has for you.
"But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meedkness and fear. Having a good conscience that whereas they speak evil of you, as of evildoers, they may be ashamed that falsely accuse your good conversation in Christ." 1 Peter 3:15-16
We need to acknowledge the Lordship of Christ in ALL things in our lives...Sanctified...amen
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