I will share about Christian books I have read or listened to.
I will be sharing about my life before and after Christ. I will include stories about my pet and other pets I have encountered.
The Mission of God
All of our lives are used for something. Most people spend their lives focused on growing a family, building their career, or amassing possessions.
While none of those things are necessarily wrong, they can become distractions from our ultimate goal in life.
In the book of Acts, we see Paul’s transformation in Christ. As a result of meeting Jesus and being changed by His grace, Paul spends the rest of his life preaching the good news of Jesus.
For Paul, God’s grace and salvation is so great that nothing on this earth is as important as God’s work.
Paul says that nothing in His life matters as much as telling others about God’s grace. His goal in life was to finish his own race well by faithfully accomplishing as much of the mission of God as possible:
"However, I consider my life worth nothing to me; my only aim is to finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me—the task of testifying to the good news of God's grace."
Acts 20:24 NIV
The mission of God is not opposed to growing families or building careers. In fact, God desires for us to use those opportunities to faithfully accomplish the mission of God. We can raise families in the way of God, and we can tell our coworkers about God’s grace. Any place we find ourselves in can be an opportunity to accomplish the mission of God.
Take a moment to consider your own life and where you spend your time. Are you using every opportunity you have to spread the good news of Jesus? Does your life, like Paul’s, point toward God?
Consider a few ways that you can begin to change your perspective and live your life on mission for God.
God is Our Comfort
Have you ever looked around you and wondered, “Why is there so much evil, wickedness, and pain in the world?”
In Psalm 94, King David is extremely upset about the state of humanity. People are blaming God for the world’s rampant wickedness as though God did not see it and did not care (see verses 1-7). So David reminds his audience that the Lord is Creator, and He knows, sees, and hears all that goes on (verses 8-11).
Because of God, David could say, “When the cares of my heart are many, your consolations cheer my soul.” (Verse 19)
King David’s “cares of the heart” were because of the wickedness and evil he saw—and our world is not much different. But David’s consolation in all the evil he witnessed was his Creator and Savior.
That’s why He could close his psalm by writing, “But the LORD has become my stronghold, and my God the rock of my refuge. He will bring back on them their inquiry and wipe them out for their wickedness, the LORD our God will wipe...
“Then said the high priest, Are these things so? And he said, Men, brethren, and fathers, hearken; The God of glory appeared unto our father Abraham, when he was in Mesopotamia, before he dwelt in Charran, and said unto him, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and come into the land which I shall shew thee. Then came he out of the land of the Chaldæans, and dwelt in Charran: and from thence, when his father was dead, he removed him into this land, wherein ye now dwell. And he gave him none inheritance in it, no, not so much as to set his foot on: yet he promised that he would give it to him for a possession, and to his seed after him, when as yet he had no child. And God spake on this wise, That his seed should sojourn in a strange land; and that they should bring them into bondage, and entreat them evil four hundred years. And the nation to whom they shall be in bondage will I judge, said God: and after that shall they come forth, and serve me in this place. And he ...
“Cry aloud, spare not, lift up thy voice like a trumpet, and shew my people their transgression, and the house of Jacob their sins. Yet they seek me daily, and delight to know my ways, as a nation that did righteousness, and forsook not the ordinance of their God: they ask of me the ordinances of justice; they take delight in approaching to God. Wherefore have we fasted, say they, and thou seest not? wherefore have we afflicted our soul, and thou takest no knowledge? Behold, in the day of your fast ye find pleasure, and exact all your labours. Behold, ye fast for strife and debate, and to smite with the fist of wickedness: ye shall not fast as ye do this day, to make your voice to be heard on high. Is it such a fast that I have chosen? a day for a man to afflict his soul? is it to bow down his head as a bulrush, and to spread sackcloth and ashes under him? wilt thou call this a fast, and an acceptable day to the LORD? Is not this the fast that I have chosen? to loose the bands of ...
