Wednesday, March 05, 2008

Teach with Your Life

What is your life saying to others? What are you teaching them about who God is and how God works? We teach people everyday with our lives about who God is. We were created in God's image. What image are we showing? There is good in us, God's spirit is there, but are we showing that with our lives, or are we continuing to show how our ego, our sin, is controlling our lives? It all is a matter of what we believe about ourselves and if we are practicing our spiritual disciplines to allow God to be seen.

Everything God created is good, and to be received with thanks. Nothing is to be sneered at and thrown out. God's Word and our prayers make every item in creation holy.
You've been raised on the Message of the faith and have followed sound teaching. Now pass on this counsel to the followers of Jesus there, and you'll be a good servant of Jesus. Stay clear of silly stories that get dressed up as religion. Exercise daily in God—no spiritual flabbiness, please! Workouts in the gymnasium are useful, but a disciplined life in God is far more so, making you fit both today and forever. You can count on this. Take it to heart. This is why we've thrown ourselves into this venture so totally. We're banking on the living God, Savior of all men and women, especially believers.
Get the word out. Teach all these things. And don't let anyone put you down because you're young. Teach believers with your life: by word, by demeanor, by love, by faith, by integrity. Stay at your post reading Scripture, giving counsel, teaching. And that special gift of ministry you were given when the leaders of the church laid hands on you and prayed—keep that dusted off and in use.
Cultivate these things. Immerse yourself in them. The people will all see you mature right before their eyes! Keep a firm grasp on both your character and your teaching. Don't be diverted. Just keep at it. Both you and those who hear you will experience salvation.
I Timothy 4:5-16
So have we totally thrown ourselves into this venture with God? Do our lives teach love, patience, faith, gentleness, kindness? Are we really cultivating these things in our lives and immersing ourselves in them? When we do we expereince salvation and so do the people around us. They know love, they know peace, they know God! We know the same things. Practice your spiritual disciplines today - reading, prayer, meditation, loving, kindness - not because we earn God's love for it. Do it because you experience salvation and so do the people around you. This is why God "saved" us - to experience salvation and teach others with our life of salvation so they can experience it also!
Namaste'

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