Tag: God

Words, Words, Words

How Important are My Words

Are our words important? How does God view what I’m saying?

In the Bible we can see that how important words are to God. He created the world by speaking. He always emphasized the writing down of His words to His people.

There used to be a time in our culture/society’s past where all a person had to do was give you “their word” that they would do something and you could consider it done. Now it is almost a novelty that someone will do something solely based on their word. This should not be so.

“The tongue can bring death or life; those who love to talk will reap the consequences.”

–Proverbs 18:21

Our words are this important. Have you ever noticed that people who speak negatively or dwell on bad things tend to have bad things always pop up in their life. It seems like they go from one crazy situation to another crazy situation.

Don’t Be Scared

A word of caution here: Don’t be scared to the degree that you’re never going to say another word. That’s not what God wants either. Be encouraged that while we now know how important our words are, God also has given us the right words that we should be saying. Words that encourage people and not tear them down.

[ctt template=”8″ link=”zy971″ via=”no” ]Our words can bring Life or Death[/ctt]

Our words can bring life or death with them. Why would I want to speak death over the person that cut me off in traffic? Do I want to speak death on my boss for writing me up for something? In the moment that these things happen we may say “Yes”, we want to say something to these people. However, God has called us to be better than our feelings.

We Have a Choice

We have a choice in the words that we say. Will it always be easy? No, it won’t be easy and there will be times where people or situations will test us. Even in those moments, God has made a way for us to speak the right words.

“Those who live in the shelter of the Most High will find rest in the shadow of the Almighty. This I declare about the Lord: He alone is my refuge, my place of safety; he is my God, and I trust him.” –Psalm 91:1-2

This is an example of what we can say when times are hard or when we don’t know what to say. It helps us to remember to take time to go to God before we react to every person or situation.

How have you kept an eye on what you say?

Staying the Course

Where Are We Going?

Stay The Course

Many times as Christians we hear the phrase “Stay the course.” While it sounds great and most people would agree its necessary, few understand what it truly means?

Staying the course should start with “a course”. I’m currently writing this while I sit in an airport terminal. There is a hustle and bustle as the sea of people make there way from one place to another all with a specific destinations in mind.

What is the course we are on? Where are we going? Observing the people in the airport I notice a couple of things that I think can be applied to our spiritual lives.

FOCUS

1. The destination is the focus. Whether exiting from a flight, making a connection, or boarding a flight people are walking with a focus. There are signs, “Terminal C”, “Gate 27”, and as people look for the specific location that will take them to their destination they are determined to make it where they need to be. God has a destination and plan for everyone. We should pursue it purposefully like we do when we are in an airport.

DISTRACTIONS

2. Ignoring the distractions. Walking through an airport, people are so focused that they do not stop for the distractions that surround them. We know how important it is that we make it to our destination. We know the investment that we have made whether money or time and how valuable it is that we make our flights. There are so many times that we know God has given us something to do, but we let distractions get in the way. When it comes to doing what God wants, there seems to be a ready made distraction waiting.

 

TIME

3. The time is accounted for. By this I mean that when we know we are going the airport, we calculate the cost of our time. We think of how early we need to leave home in order to get the airport. We think of the car ride there, the weather, and how much time we will need to get through security. When we want to see God’s plan in our lives we need to do the same thing. Let’s think of the “cost.” Do we need to rearrange our schedule? How much time do we need to commit to this to see it come to pass? What other areas of our lives do we need to commit to God and what will it cost?

I don’t believe that staying the course is as hard as we make it out to be, if it’s important to us. We can absolutely finish, whatever it is. Let’s tell ourselves that it’s important and then treat it as such. The things that we value, we make room for in our lives. We can do this! Once we do, we’ll race to see God’s amazing grace and plan come into our lives.

The Moses Principle Part 2

Last week I talked about the Moses Principle and how Moses tried to make excuses when God called him. Today I wanted to share a little more about the Moses Principle. There is more that we can learn from Moses about ourselves

In Moses’ life there came a time where he had to lead the children of Israel. It came in stages for him as he acted on God’s Word and did what God told him to do. There are some leadership principles that we can learn from Moses.

Leadership is obedience.

Leadership is obedience Click To Tweet

Where did Moses learn how to lead the children of Israel? He learned through obedience. His obedience to God is what propelled his leadership. Moses learned how to lead by being obedient. As God gave Moses direction, he would relay the directions to the people. In the eyes of the people Moses was seen as a leader. In the eyes of God, Moses was a man that would follow His commands and have a heart for his people.

From this, there is an aspect of leadership that we can learn. The key to leadership is to obey the voice of God. Just as God gave Moses directions for every situation, He will do the same for us. Our focus, has to be on hearing the voice of the Lord.

Instead of giving the excuses that seem to be readily available when we need them, we must press through.

Today we have access to opinions, studies, polls and all types of  information.  The access to information is so great that we can let it drown out the voice of God, if we let it.  All the information that we have in this world falls short of the wisdom of God.

Leadership is action.

The first step to leadership is to obey the voice of God. The second step is to take action based on those instructions. Hearing God’s voice will only get us partially there. We must take actions that are based on those instructions.

An example of this is when the children of Israel needed water. The first time God told Moses to strike a rock and the water would come. The second time around, God gave Moses a different set of instructions. He told Moses to speak to the rock. Moses decided to do what he did the previous time.

He disobeyed the voice of God. He did not follow the instructions and it cost him dearly.

As we obey the voice of God, we will be elevated to positions of leadership. Not because we are great and have more knowledge than those around us. No, our leadership will come from being obedient.

Be encouraged today!! We don’t have to aim to be a leader, trendsetter or anything like that. Let’s just aim to be obedient and God will direct us on where we are supposed to be.