”Anyone who lets himself be distracted from the work I plan for him is not fit for the kingdom of God” (Luke 9:62 TLB). Many people might say they want to be used by God but will never be used by God. Why? They’re too busy. They’ve got their own agenda going. They’ve got their plans and dreams and ambitions, and they don’t have any time! In the midst of their busyness, they try to carve out a little sliver from the pie of life and say, “I’ll give this to God.” But it doesn’t work that way. If you’re serious about being used by God, you have to say, “Lord, what do I need to let go of? What do I need to cut out? What barriers are holding me back and keeping me from running the race you have for me?” Lots of different barriers will hold you back from God’s plan for your life. One of the biggest categories: distractions. Jesus said in Luke 9:62, “Anyone who lets himself be distracted from the work I plan for him is not fit for the kingdom of God” (TLB). Here are a few of the many things that could distract you from your life mission: The expectations of other people. You’ve got to decide whom you’re going to please first in life. You can only have one number one. Hobbies. There’s nothing wrong with these things. But if they distract you from the most important things, then you need to let go of them. Your past. Maybe you refuse to let go of your past—whether it’s guilt or resentment or grief. But if you’re stuck in the past, you cannot get on with the present, and you certainly can’t get on with God’s future for you. Your past is past. It’s over! You need to let it go. What do you need to let go of? The Bible says in 1 Corinthians 10:23, “‘Everything is permissible,’ but not everything is helpful” (HCSB). What does that mean? It means this: A lot of things aren’t necessarily wrong; they’re just not necessary. Life often means choosing either “Am I going to do something good?” or “Am I going to do what’s best?” If the Devil can’t make you bad, he’ll make you busy. He’ll get you so busy that you don’t have time for the important stuff—time alone with God, ministry, and mission. You need to simplify your life and eliminate distractions so God can use you. Don’t try to do it all. Do what matters most!
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“Make allowance for each other’s faults, and forgive anyone who offends you. Remember, the Lord forgave you, so you must forgive others” (Colossians 3:13 NLT). Do you show people grace? It’s what God wants us to do, but it’s not always easy to remember to do because we are so often focused on ourselves. It’s easier sometimes to be selfish instead of gracious. You see the slow checker in the grocery store line as a five-minute interruption to your day rather than somebody who might be struggling to keep his job, somebody who just got the worst news of his life a few minutes earlier. You see the one in your family who’s struggling right now as a drain on you rather than seeing her hopelessness over a desperate situation. You see the person who cut you off on the freeway as the physical embodiment of Satan instead of just a jerk who is in need of God’s love. We are all jerks in need of God’s love. That’s why Jesus Christ came into this world. And to show people grace is to remember what God has done for us. The ultimate way God shows us grace is by forgiveness. And the ultimate way he asks us to show grace to other people is by forgiving them. Colossians 3:13 says, “Make allowance for each other’s faults, and forgive anyone who offends you. Remember, the Lord forgave you, so you must forgive others” (NLT). People often ask, “How can I find the strength to forgive? I don’t have it in me.” I don’t have it in me, either! The only place I’ve ever found the strength to forgive is to remember how much Jesus has forgiven me. When I remember that, then he gives me the strength and grace to forgive others. Clara Barton, who founded the American Red Cross, was reminded by a friend of an especially cruel thing that somebody had done to her years before. Barton acted like she didn’t remember it, and the friend asked, “Don’t you remember?” Her famous reply was, “No, I distinctly remember forgetting it.” What do you need to forget? If you don’t forgive, you’re not going to enjoy God’s vision for the rest of your life, because forgiveness will keep you stuck in the past. You need to forgive for your sake, and then you need to get on with your life. Forgiveness is not saying that what somebody did was right or that there shouldn’t be consequences for what happened. It just means that you let go of your anger and hurt and give it to God so that you can move on with God’s purpose for your life. When that seems impossible, when you feel like you can’t be gracious toward someone, just remember one thing: Jesus forgave you. Remembering the grace God has shown you will give you the strength to be gracious to and forgive others. ”A wise person is hungry for knowledge, while the fool feeds on trash” (Proverbs 15:14 NLT). If you want to become wise, the first thing you have to do is feast on God’s Word every day. Proverbs 2:6 says, “It is the Lord who gives wisdom; from him come knowledge and understanding” (GNT). You don’t get it from television. You don’t get it from the internet. You don’t get it from magazines. Wisdom comes from God. The Bible says in Proverbs 15:14, “A wise person is hungry for knowledge, while the fool feeds on trash” (NLT). You can either feed on truth or feed on trash. Whatever you fill your mind with is what’s going to come out—garbage in, garbage out. If you want to be wise, you’ve got to feed every day on truth, not trash. There are three kinds of things you can fill your mind with: You can fill your mind with poison, you can fill your mind with junk food, or you can fill your mind with health food. Poison is stuff that destroys your system. It’s bad for you. It takes you down. Pornography is poison. For instance, they may say, “I can watch that stuff. It doesn’t bother me anymore.” That’s the problem! When you can watch and read stuff that is profane, blasphemous, evil, vile, and abusive and it doesn’t bother you, you have a problem. You have become a fool. Wise people protect their mind. They put on the helmet of salvation. They don’t just allow anything into their mind. They keep the poison out. Junk food is neither good nor bad. It just has no nutritional value to it. Most of the stuff you see on tv is not evil. It’s just junk food. It’s what I call stuffing. But the problem with stuffing is that when you stuff yourself with stuffing, you have no hunger for truth. If you watch TV for four hours, your mind is full of empty calories that don’t help your body or your mind. Health food is nutritional food. It helps you grow and maintain your health. It is truth, and the wise person feeds on truth. It makes you wiser—in your relationships, your time, your money, your business, your parenting, your marriage, and every other area of your life. The first place you need to go to fill your mind with truth is God’s Word. The more you develop the habit of spending time each day reading and studying the Bible, the wiser you will become. "Our purpose is to please God, not people. He alone examines the motives of our hearts” (1 Thessalonians 2:4 NLT).
God did not make you to be what somebody else wants you to be. God didn’t make you to be what your parents want you to be, what your girlfriend or boyfriend wants you to be, what your spouse wants you to be, or what your boss or your friends want you to be. God made you to be you. If you’re going to become all you can be, you have to refuse to be defined by others. Hebrews 11:24 says, “By faith Moses, when he had grown up, refused to be known as the son of Pharaoh’s daughter” (NIV). Moses had an identity crisis. He was born a Hebrew slave but raised as Egyptian royalty, the grandson of Pharaoh. When he grew up, he faced two options: He could pretend to be Pharaoh’s grandson for the rest of his life and live a life of luxury and fame and power. Or he could admit who he really was: a Jew. If he admitted who he really was, his family would kick him out to live with slaves the rest of his life. He would be disgraced and humiliated and live a life of pain and drudgery. Which would you choose? Most people today are living lies. They’re trying to be people they’re not. But Moses refused to live a lie because he was a man of integrity. He insisted on being who God made him to be despite all kinds of peer pressure. Here’s a question for you: Who are you letting determine your identity? Is it your friends and family? Maybe you have parents who died years ago, but you’re still trying to live up to their vision for your life. Perhaps you are hanging on to what your ex-husband or ex-wife said to you, and you’re trying to prove that person wrong. Or maybe you are trying to keep up with what social media and culture and the competition all say you should be. But the Bible says this: “Our purpose is to please God, not people. He alone examines the motives of our hearts” (1 Thessalonians 2:4 NLT). The first resolution you need to make is this: “I resolve that I will no longer let other people press me into their mold. I’m going to be what God wants me to be. I’m going to do what God wants me to do, and I’m going to fulfill the plan that God has for my life, not somebody else’s plan for my life.” Friend, that is real success. Real success in life is being exactly who you were created to be and nothing more |
AuthorTaken from Daily Hope by Rick Warren. Categories
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