Lord Jesus and the Covenant Prayer

 

John and Charles Wesley (kind of)

We are in the middle of a sermon series on the Wesley Covenant Prayer. I want to remind everyone why this is important. Wesley's Covenant Prayer is just a commitment to our salvation by acknowledging Jesus's Lordship in every area of our lives. 

When we think of our salvation, the Scripture that is central is Romans 10:9-10. If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you profess your faith and are saved. We need to understand that Scripture speaks that our salvation comes by confession and by belief. Not that confession saves us. Confession is the outworking of what we have in our hearts according to Jesus (Matthew 12:34).

What do others say:

Wesley's Notes on the New Testament, Wesley says this. "Confession here implies the whole of the outward, as believing does, the root of all inward religion."

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges says, "confess to the mouth, submit and own him as supreme for thee, or for us." And points out the fact that this was an important part of adult baptism, us confirming that Jesus is Lord.

Barnes notes on the Bible acknowledge it, saying, "acknowledging him that Lord, that is, as having the right to rule over our soul."

Jameson - Fawcett - Brown Bible Commentary says, "Confession is the proper manifestation or the evidence of faith." In other words, if you believe it in your heart, it's going to come out of your mouth, which, as I referenced before, is what Jesus said: "out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks." 

So, if we truly believe that Jesus is Lord, that God has raised him from the dead, which is the ultimate evidence that Jesus is Lord, then we shall be saved according to Romans 10:9-10, so the confession and belief that Jesus is Lord is the centerpiece of what it means to come into the Christian life. The thing about it is that's just the beginning. Part of our Christian life is learning how to live out that belief in every area and allowing Jesus to truly be the Lord of everything in our lives.

I'm going to throw out to you that the Wesley Covenant Prayer is us looking at the Lordship of Jesus and applying it to our lives. It's kind of like a list of responsibilities or job requirements. How do you know that you have a boss? Well, one, he pays you, hopefully. He has the authority to say things and to make decisions on how you do your work. You can get the idea that there are guidelines. But also, if you work for someone, sometimes you have expectations. If you're going to work for me, here's what I expect.

The Wesley covenant prayer is us listing, as it were, our willingness to submit every area of our life to whatever expectations God has for us, whether that's prosperity or poverty, whether that's health or sickness, whether that's to be busy or to be set aside. It ends with a conclusion saying that we want this covenant to be established. In other words, we want the true what it means to be Jesus, to be Lord in our lives, to be firmly established in our hearts.

The thing about the Wesley covenant prayer is this: not just a prayer for us as individuals, it's a prayer for us as a people. This prayer is meant to be a corporate prayer as much as it is a personal prayer. It's a reminder that we are not in this alone. We are in unity with our rightful ruler, the supreme authority, Jesus Christ, our Lord.

Consider that as we continue our study of the Wesley covenant prayer.

Father in heaven,

I am no longer my own, but thine.

Put me to what thou wilt, rank me with whom thou wilt.

Put me to doing, put me to suffering.

Let me be employed by thee or laid aside for thee,

exalted for thee or brought low for thee.

Let me be full, let me be empty.

Let me have all things, let me have nothing.

I freely and heartily yield all things

to thy pleasure and disposal.

And now, O glorious and blessed God,

Father, Son, and Holy Spirit,

thou art mine, and I am thine. So be it.

And the covenant which I have made on earth,

let it be ratified in heaven. Amen.

John Wesley 

The Dragon's Queen 2 Blurb

 

Not final cover

How does this sound?

Princess Sara is ready to return and bring much-needed reformation to her nation. However, while she has been away learning the truth about herself and her people, everything changed. Evil didn't wait for Princess Sara's reformation and has brought murder and conflict to the peaceful nation of Rishona. With the help of the dragon, Draco, and David the giant, Princess Sara must find a way to remove those who are willing to do anything to gain power. Thus begins the struggle of the Dragon's Queen for control of her kingdom, because if you want to bring change, you've got to live long enough to do it. 

or

Princess Sara is ready to return and bring much-needed reformation to her nation. However, evil didn't wait for Princess Sara's reformation and has brought murder and conflict to the peaceful nation of Rishona. With the help of the dragon Draco and David the giant, Princess Sara must find a way to remove those who are willing to do anything to gain power. The struggle begins because if Sara wants to bring change, she's got to live long enough to do it.  

Which Blurb?

Which grabs you more? 

#1  In a world of talking animals, danger is coming. Max is left for dead. Link and Jezreel are secretly sent to discover it. Destiny brings Max and Link together in a place of peril, and they will discover an evil that is not supposed to exist. Their experiences will test them, and they will ask themselves, “Can faith triumph when everything goes wrong?” and “Can you stand for right when you are all alone?”

#2 An accident returns the memories of a lonely talking elephant named Max, but now he has a choice. Take the dangerous journey to reunite with his family, or first seek out those non-talking elephants who have cared for him. Confused about life, Max decides to trust the Creator and do what is right. He is joined by Link, a speaking otter, on a quest to find the group of non-speaking elephants that helped Max. The journey takes them to places they never dreamed of and carries them off to an evil that is not supposed to exist.  Max must ask himself, “Can faith triumph when everything goes wrong? And do you stand up for what is right even when you are all alone?”

 

Perseverance in James

This is sometimes such an understatement.

 James 5:11 says, "As you know, we count blessed those who persevere. You've heard of the perseverance of Job. And seeing what the Lord brought about, the Lord is full of compassion and mercy.

As we look at this, in the context of Job’s entire story, there are things to note. Of course, God does not give a reason to Job for why everything happened. He doesn't explain anything. Job is left, at least, with this question: "Why?" Why did all this take place? When God said, "Can you answer these questions first?" And, of course, Job couldn't. This indicates that Job doesn't have the capability to understand the answer. 

So, despite that, Job persevered. He kept holding on to God. He questioned God, yes. He wondered what was happening and was asking if God had failed him, and wanted answers. He still held on to the Lord. Comments like, "in the last days, in my flesh, I will see God," and “my flesh will be destroyed,” this is not somebody who's expecting to be delivered. This is someone who's expecting to die horribly. Yet, has faith that God will raise him someday. 

And yet, at the end, God restores. Why? because God is full of compassion and mercy.

God didn't have to, but He did.

God showed compassion and mercy. We see that throughout the Bible. God promises to show compassion, show mercy, and reward those who are faithful.

Now, we know from Scripture and from what Jesus said that in this life, we may not have that reward. But this passage is not talking about receiving rewards in this life; we talk about what the prophets did. They persevered, but most of them died horribly. On the other side, this passage states that for those who are unfaithful, those who have stored up for themselves shall gain horrid things; they shall be judged (we see that beginning of chapter five). This is not always here and now, but it will come. 

Those who are faithful to God, those who persevere in the midst of suffering, in the midst of being faithful and yet not seeing great rewards like the prophets, those who persevere against those who treat them wrongly, and those who suffer like Job, will be rewarded by God. Some people say we shouldn't think about a reward because Jesus himself is a reward, and he is. God doesn't have to give us anything else, but it is very clear in Scripture that God is going to give us more. He's going to reward us in a way that we could never imagine. God restored to Job twice what he lost. God promised in the Bible that he would restore to Israel the things that they lost. And here we see God is promising through James that he will reward us if we just persevere.

Judgment day for the Christian isn't just about avoiding the bad consequences because we were forgiven. It's going to be about reward. Why? Because we deserve it, because we're great people. No. Because God is merciful. We're called. Part of our job is to be faithful, to persevere. We don't, we aren't earned a reward. But God's going to give it to us one, anyway. That's a wonderful God. I'm glad I serve him.

"My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"

"My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"

First, some background information,  I thought my talk later on Tuesday aggravated my trigeminal neuralgia, but it seems the problem was a growing abscess in one of my molars. After almost a week in absolute agony, the infection moved into my neck, causing it to look swollen on Saturday. I went to the ER, then transferred to a Methodist in Indianapolis, an hour away, where this morning, at 4 am, I had the abscess drained. I'm recovering from oral surgery, and then I will have to have the tooth removed, also painfully. To make things more challenging, I have a severe sore throat and am having issues swallowing due to the other pain.

This passage in Psalm 22 and then from the cross, is somewhat controversial. Some see it as a declaration that the Messianic Psalm refers to him. Others see this as Christ's humanity calling out to God, " Why? " I'm not always going with those, but see this as both.  Now, unfortunately, I have the personal experience to understand it. Before Saturday, I was in my room and crying out to God, " Have mercy. God have mercy." I did this through a mouth I could barely open for I don't know how long. The pain caused me to shake as I sat on the edge of my bed, nearly weeping. As I was crying out, the thought entered my mind would you do anything for this to stop? I said yes, but then I remembered my own preaching; those are annoying sometimes, that at times our suffering is for a greater purpose. Would I have done, I thought, anything to feel better? Now I remembered there were reasons in this world I should want to endure. I changed my plea to, "Have mercy, or give me strength to endure."(I have also preached on that boy, my pastor, myself is annoying). The pain didn't magically get better, and as you read, it got even crazier. Even now, I had to pause writing first due to the pain of oral surgery and then, as I felt the fear of being there. At one point on Saturday, I broke out in a cold sweat, as I had never had one, as the nurse was digging into my hand for the third time to set an IV, and that wasn't the worst, but back to the subject. Once I remembered that there are reasons (those that don't God will work for good, but more on that in another devotion), I still cried out in my heart, "God, where are you?" but at the same time I was calling on the strength to endure in case this was what was needed.

I believe this was Jesus on the cross, both experiencing humanity, yet trusting God. Jesus words touched those who need hope that the story doesn't end on Friday; it's a victory declaration. It is also words that walk with us, not just in our Gethsemane but in those moments we are on our cross. Jesus, the great mystery, who touches us wherever we are.

If I'm dying...

 

What if you knew you would die in a day/month/year, what would you change? 

There is a reason for this question to be asked, but too often it can bring shame and guilt. It should bring hope, but it's hard to let it do that in a world that says you don't do enough. 

So here is my answer.

If I knew I had one year to live, of course, I would change things, and I should. Some responsibilities and issues need to be covered if I'm going to die. However, I should live neither in fear of death nor in denial. I need to plan as if I'm going to live, which includes writing a series of books that will take more than a year to write. I need to live with integrity and love, so if I'm taken from my family today, they will not feel as if I cheated them for some dream in the sky. 

If a 19-year-old is going to die in a year, yes, quit college; if not, stick with it. If you don't think you're going to die, plan and invest, but don't count on them. If you're working all of the time, stop and smell the roses and invest in things that can't be bought. 

Okay, I've ranted long enough. The answer is, am I living today as God would have me, not culture, not peer pressure, nothing but God, and if I am, I'm okay.

Know When To Run

Know when to run

The book of Ecclesiastes says there's a time to build up and a time to tear down. There's a time to stay, and there's a time to leave. There's a time to get away. A lot of times, we think in our own lives that we should be building more, and we should be doing something to add or get more, especially in the church. We always want to grow, and we never want to be taking away. But sometimes there's a time and a place where things change. There's a time to tear apart. There's a time to rend. There's a time to, well, run away.

And when we look in  Jeremiah 45, God has a message to Baruch, Jeremiah's scribe, who is seeing all this stuff that is taking place. The Lord says,  "This is what the Lord says. I will overthrow what I have built and uproot what I have planted throughout the land. Should you seek great things for yourself? Seek them not. For I will bring disaster on all people, declares the Lord. But wherever you go, I will let you escape with your life."

God is telling Baruch, "Don't try to hold on to things. Let them go." At this point, Baruch, trying to hold on to things or gather things for himself, would only bring misery because he was going to lose them. And there are times in our lives when we have to be willing to let go. Because if we try to hold on to them, they will bring pain. There's a time when a child grows up, and we have to let go. There's a time when we get older, and we've got to, well, release the keys of the car. There are times we have to let go of something we may like to do because we are no longer capable of it. There may be ministries in the church that at one time were a great work, but now are not. Maybe they were a great work for you to do, but now you are at a point in your life where you're not going to be successful if you continue to do them.

And God may say to you, "It's time to let go." And the problem is, if we keep holding on, when God says let go, we will have pain. There will be agony. And that's why sometimes God says, "Let go." We've got to be willing to make sure and listen. And let go when God says to.

No, don't give up too soon. Don't just throw in the towel when things get hard. But when God truly speaks, it's time to walk away. Then you need to walk away. Or they use the words of Kenny Rogers in The Gambler. "You've got to know when to walk away." Sometimes, "you've got to know when to run."

One thing you always want to run to is God.

Photo by Jenny Hill on Unsplash

YOU SHALL NOT PASS

Author Seth Ring asked in a Facebook post, What book quote do you like and why (Okay, he said it better than that, but you get the idea.) I shared one, but then I remembered the scene from Fellowship of the Ring where Gandalf stands at the Bridge of Khazad-dûm. He stands there facing an opponent he doesn't know he can beat, but he stands firm and gives an ultimatum, "You shall not pass." Gandalf has great power but is facing something that could kill him, but because his friends need to be able to escape, he confronts it. 

I hope that I can have that strength. To do what Paul says in Ephesians, "after you have done everything, to stand. Stand firm then,..." I want to put on the armor of God, and then if I can't do anything else, stand there and tell the enemy, "You shall not pass." 

Yet, as I think this, perhaps there are days when I have that opportunity but miss it. It's because the monsters are huge or scary; they are just there, and I refuse to oppose them because I'm tired, I'm angry, or I just don't care today. Perhaps the little monsters in my life are the ones I need to be fighting so that I can have the courage to face the really important ones later. Maybe those little aggravations are training opportunities that I'm missing. Perhaps, because I'm not training, God isn't assigning me the missions to face and conquer the big monsters.   

Photo by Dalal on Unsplash

Recommendation for Writers

 The bane of my writing has always been my typing/keyboard speed. My thoughts and imagination run far faster than the words I could type.

I had heard about dictation and had tried it a couple of times with various levels of success, or maybe I should say failure. When I finally came across Seth Ring's YouTube videos and then his dictation course, things finally started to click. The first time I wrote over 10k words in a day, I was amazed. As a part-time author, every minute counts, and dictation is saving me a massive amount of that precious commodity, time, that I can never afford to squander.

I, now, have hope that all, or at least many, of the worlds I have imagined can finally be shared with others.

I do want to warn you. Seth's program isn't easy. This isn’t a quick-fix program; it’s more like a gym membership with a ruthless but caring coach. It requires deliberate practice, but if you're willing to put in the work, it will make a difference in the amount of work you can produce. It will help you. It is worth it.

--C. S. Areson, Christian author and fiction writer.

https://bookscribe.thrivecart.com/dictation-fiction-writing/

Photo by Florian Klauer on Unsplash

How many mangers?

 

When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let us go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has made known to us.” So they hurried off and found Mary and Joseph and the Baby, who was lying in the manger. Luke 2:15-16

What hit me this year, as I heard this story again, was, "How many managers were there in Bethlehem?" This took me to the second question, "How long did it take them to find him?" 

Sure, Bethlehem wasn't a huge city, but it was crowded with those who came as they were from the family of David. The town was probably filled with homes that had their livestock with them, and so they had feeding boxes for their animals. It was night, so how many people did they tell about the visitation even before they found the baby? 

Of course, you might be thinking, "Who cares?" This has nothing to do with me, but are you sure? I'm not. Jesus later told his disciples in Luke 11:9, “So I say to you: Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you." The shepherds sought, and they found. There are truths that Jesus wants to tell us, but we need to seek (in the Bible). There is a life out there God wants us to live, but we have to be willing to go and find it. 

Are you (and I) willing to do the work of finding what God has told us about, or are we just going to stare at the sky and wonder what it all means? 

Photo by Jon Carlson on Unsplash

Going Forward

One of the great dangers for anyone is taking on too much. We can allow ourselves to become like Titan and try to carry the world. For myself, I never see myself as having done enough, which can keep me from being lazy but can also force me into a frame of mind that doesn't allow me to rest as God commands.

Balance in life is not the old-fashioned scales, where we add to one side or another. Balance isn't equality in our lives. I say that because we are people and not measuring devices. Balance for people is often more nuanced.

Balance is often something we talk about, but in understanding it, we create something it isn't. Balance for a pregnant woman isn't the same as a teenage boy, or an unemployed steelworker, or a pastor. Balance is adding the right amount of force to the right areas of our lives to keep us from falling over or falling into error. It means turning off the TV or going home early from work to take care of a sick wife or child. It may mean taking an extra job to pay off debt. It may mean not watching TV or reading fiction to finish the master’s Program. It may mean doing nothing so that your body can recover.

To say it another way, balance for an introvert may mean only a few hours or less around people who drain you. For an extrovert, your balance is to be intact with more stimuli. For a cactus, balance is only a little water and lots of sun, but an impatiens needs lots of water and shade. As a Christian, you always need God and His word. For an infant or someone who is older, balance might mean taking a nap. Balance for you won’t be the same as for others.

Find the balance that God wants you to have and live into it, but remember to let God be your instructor in this.

PERSONAL APPLICATION: This is where it comes to me. I need to keep a balance. Currently, I am starting to work with a Bible scholar on reviewing the Bible Reflections Series. This is something due to our schedules that will take a lot of time. We will begin with Bible Reflections 5 and continue so that the book and the blog, https://biblereflections4you.blogspot.com will be as accurate as I can make them. To do this and not become overloaded, I will not be continuing to add more comments as we go through Bible Reflections, even though I am still doing the readings.

 

For the few who follow here, thanks for your understanding. I will still be posting, but less frequently and not about Bible Reflections. See you in 2026.

REMEMBER: Balance is adding the right amount of force to the right areas of our lives to keep us from falling over or falling into error.

Jeremiah 37

 

Don’t think this reprieve means you're getting off. There are times when it appears that people who are doing wrong are going to get away with consequences. The truth is that everyone will face judgment. Here, it seems they'll be okay, but God warns them they won't. What Judah should have done is take this time to call for people to repent and call out to God. What do we see? They arrest the prophet on trumped-up charges. Instead of seeking the prophet to return to God, they beat him and might have killed him if the king hadn't stepped in. The king, though protecting Isaiah, shows no sign of calling for repentance either. How sad.  

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Romans 16

 

Paul and Romans Chapter 16 has a list of people that are just one after another of people who are in Christ or are working for Christ or have helped in the work of Christ and it's amazing to see these names listed one after another, some of which are new people we haven't heard of before, some of which we can read about it in the Book of Acts. But it's amazing to see the number of people who came beside Paul and were working for the gospel.

Yet in the middle of all this, Paul says, greet them and do wonderful things to them and treat them right. Paul warns 16 and verse 17 to watch out for those who cause divisions, obstacles, and keep away from them. After saying "greet these people," do nice things. There's this warning: watch out for those who are causing division. Watch out for those who are causing trouble and serving themselves. And why? Because God wants us to be innocent about what is evil. Don't get caught up in those things that cause divisions that cause problems with those people who do that. But serve God faithfully. And as Paul says, "God of peace will crush Satan." You don't have to. I don't have to. And to me, that is a relief. I have things to do, you have things to do, but God will have the victory.

Photo by Hanri Meades on Unsplash

Romans 15

 

As we look at Romans Chapter 15, Paul starts out in verse 14, 15, that he understands that the people in Rome are, they're doing good, they have knowledge, they have competence, they can instruct one another, but he says that he's, because of his ministry, he's spoken boldly on some points to remind them. And I'm reminded that the reason we go sometimes to church isn't just to help other people, which we should. It isn't just to hear new things. Sometimes we do. Sometimes it's good to be reminded. That's the ministry sometimes for our pastor. Just to remind people of what they already know.

Also, I found it interesting that at the end of this chapter, Paul asks for prayer. He asks him, he says, "Pray for me." Now, if anyone was good enough, it would have been Paul, we would think. But yet Paul the Apostle says, "I want you to pray for me." He realized that the prayers of others would help him in the things he was about to face.

Finally, if I may, verse 13 sounds like a great conclusion. "May the God of Hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in Him so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit." Amen. Go with God today.

Psalm 86

 

There are two prayers in the chapter that have me thinking today. The first is that God would guard our lives, and the second is that God would give us an undivided heart. When I consider it, these aren’t two prayers but one; if our lives are going to be all that they need to be for God, our hearts can’t be divided. We have to be fully committed to God and his ways. James gives the warning that a divided heart won’t receive anything from God, so this is a real concern. The great thing is God knows our weakness and will help us when we find our heart divided between what He says and other desires that come up within us. God will if we let him give us undivided hearts, and in that He is guarding our lives.

2 Samuel 14

  

As I look into 2 Samuel 14, I see something that I see as a reflection of 2 Samuel 13. Jonadab gave advice to his brother. And now Joab is giving advice through someone else to David to try to make them feel better about themselves and about what's going on in their life. The problem is that both of these choices led to disaster, which is a reminder to me that we need to make sure to pick wise counselors and not just people who will tell us what we want to hear. 

If I'm on a diet, I don't need to ask the bakery owner, "Should I buy a donut?" Of course, he's going to say "yes." "He's going to say, one's not going to hurt you. It's okay". If I have a friend who just wants me to feel better, he'll say, "Yes, eat it." My doctor? Well, he's not going to say that. And real, honest, good advisors tell us what we don't want to hear, not just what we want to hear. 

Choose wisely.

Photo by James Lee on Unsplash

2 Samuel 13

  

Second Samuel Chapter 13, we find the story of Amon and Tamar, and then of Absalom's hatred toward his brother, and then the murder of his brother. The one thing that comes out to me in this is the fact that Absalon, it says, never said a word to Amon. In fact, we don't see that Absalom said anything to anyone. Not to David, not to Amon. He let this hatred simmer in his heart. And it simmered, and it simmered. And two years later, it came out. This is a reminder that if you hold on to bitterness and anger, it eventually leads to evil. Yes, you may never kill your enemy or the person you hate. But Jesus says if we hold on to hatred and bitterness in our heart, then we've already committed the sin of murder. Why is that? Because of our trajectory, our heart is already bent that way. And given enough time, without dealing with it, and without some sort of restraining influence, we too will follow in the steps of Absalon and murder those who have offended us. Now we might say Absalom was justified because the king, David, did nothing. And in one sense, yes. Ammon should have been killed according to the law. But ultimately, it wasn't in Absalom's hands. He was not the judge. He was not the government; his father, David, was. And we don't see that he even went to David and pleaded with him. He just held on to it until he finally worked it out in his life. Be careful what you let stay in your life. And remember this. God says we're to love our enemies, to pray for them. Why? Because ultimately, those actions, those attitudes, I should say, will destroy you, not just those people you hate.

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Jeremiah 36

 

The words Jeremiah had spoken hadn't caused the people to change, so perhaps a scroll written would? God is giving another way for people to hear his message, but what I see is that even when hearing this, the people didn't change. The elders were afraid, but other than telling Baruch and Jeremiah to hide (which was good), there is nothing that says they repented of their ways. They just took it to the king. My thought on this is that if someone's heart is turned against God, it doesn't matter what God does; he could speak from the mountain his commands (He did at Sinai), but the rebellious will not listen. As the old saying goes, "No one is so blind as the one who refuses to see."

Photo by David Underland on Unsplash

2 Samuel 12

  

In Second Samuel Chapter 12, several things caught my attention that I really hadn't noticed before. First was God's word to David. "I gave you all this. And if you wanted more, I would have given it to you." In verse number eight, God would have given David more. But no, David wanted what he wanted, and it was wrong.

Also, God's promise that what is done in secret will be shown openly. By the way, this is manifest again in the New Testament, where Jesus says that what is done in secret will be publicly acknowledged. So don't think you're hiding it. That's why it's so important to ask for forgiveness and have God come into you. He can give you the grace to accept it.

Also, David's acceptance of God's will when it came to the death of his child. He prayed and he prayed, he grieved in a very true way. But it wasn't grieving that was happening when the child was sick. It was calling out to God. And he stopped calling out to God when he saw that God wasn't going to heal his child. He accepted it. I'm sure he was. But he had come to understand now wasn't the time to try to call out to God to beg because God said no.

The amazing thing is that this relationship, which should not have taken place between David and Bathsheba. There was a son finally born named Solomon, whom Nathan, the prophet, told him to name Jedediah, meaning beloved. Is it amazing that God can bring forth the beloved from something sinful? Like God brings us, sinners broken from the actions of our Adam and Eve and our parents, all the way down to our own disobedience. When we call out forgiveness, he takes and creates one who is beloved. I just think that's a man we see.

And then finally, the last chapter, when Job tells David, "You need to get down here and take credit for this, or I will." And it just hits me, if Joab had done this early on, told David, "Hey David, you need to get down here and not stay in Jerusalem," there wouldn't have been any of this problem with Bethsheba.

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Romans 14

 

As we turn to Romans Chapter 14, the key to this chapter is verse 8, where it says, "if we live, we live for the Lord, and if we die, we die for the Lord. So whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord." Everything in our lives needs to revolve around the fact that it belongs to God. 

What would Jesus do? Which is a real question. What would Jesus do in my life when it comes to these things that are vague or unclear in scripture? Like food sacrifice to idols or celebrating certain days. Some people want to get really bent out of shape. But Paul actually is saying we need to consider our brother higher than ourselves. If it's going to offend them, if it's going to drive them away from God, then it would be better for us not to do it.  I am a teetotler, just to tell you. Years ago, I was sitting with someone at a table, and there was a small bottle of wine available, but none of us were touching it. And there was a discussion about a communion service that was going to have wine. And I just made the statement that I could not partake of that because I am a teetotaler. I did not feel that it was good for me to partake of wine because of the alcoholic tendencies in my life and the alcoholic history in my family. The person across from me said, "Well, it's no big deal," and to prove their point, they poured themselves a glass of wine and drank it, then explained how good it tasted. Thankfully, though that hurt, because this was someone I respected, I let go of it and said, "She can do what she wants, I have to do what I believe God wants." And I don't want to judge this person's actions, but in light of scripture, I've got to ask myself or tell myself, I need to do better than that. I don't need to stand over someone else and say, I don't have a problem and do what would offend them. I need to consider their soul. This is not just if somebody's being petty, but if this is a sincere issue, then I need to let it go. I don't need to flaunt it in their face. Why? Because my life isn't my own. My life is Christ, and Christ would not hurt my brother or sister. As G. Campbell Morgan put it, "the test of which we are to judge is the welfare of our brother." And I think it's not just judging. It's in all that we do.