Everyday Opportunities

[cmc]

Missionary Weapons

"If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet" ( John 13:14 )

Ministering in Everyday Opportunities. Ministering in everyday opportunities that surround us does not mean that we select our own surroundings--it means being God's very special choice to be available for use in any of the seemingly random surroundings which He has engineered for us. The very character we exhibit in our present surroundings is an indication of what we will be like in other surroundings.

The things Jesus did were the most menial of everyday tasks, and this is an indication that it takes all of God's power in me to accomplish even the most common tasks in His way. Can I use a towel as He did? Towels, dishes, sandals, and all the other ordinary things in our lives reveal what we are made of more quickly than anything else. It takes God Almighty Incarnate in us to do the most menial duty as it ought to be done.

Jesus said, "I have given you an example, that you should do as I have done to
you"( 13:15 ) Notice the kind of people that God brings around you, and you will be humiliated once you realize that this is actually His way of revealing to you the kind of person you have been to Him. Now He says we should exhibit to those around us exactly what He has exhibited to us.

Do you find yourself responding by saying, "Oh, I will do all that once I'm out in the mission field"? Talking in this way is like trying to produce the weapons of war while in the trenches of the battlefield--you will be killed while trying to do it.

We have to go the "second mile" with God ( see Matthew 5:41 ). Yet some of us become worn out in the first ten steps. Then we say, "Well, I'll just wait until I get closer to the next big crisis in my life." But if we do not steadily minister in everyday opportunities, we will do nothing when the crisis comes.

Oswald Chambers; September 11 reading taken from
My Utmost for His Highest.

[cmc]

Notice the kind of people that God brings around you, and you will be humiliated once you realize that this is actually His way of revealing to you the kind of person you have been to Him. Now He says we should exhibit to those around us exactly what He has exhibited to us.

This is a very enlightening and yet convicting statement. It includes those that I live with, work with, friends, in-laws, family, business, politicians, religious leaders...and the list goes on and on.

I need to 'do unto others' as He has 'done unto' ME, with grace, mercy, forgivness, understanding and most of all the sacrificial offering of self which is evidence of unconditional love.

[best]

Originally Posted by cmc

Notice the kind of people that God brings around you, and you will be humiliated once you realize that this is actually His way of revealing to you the kind of person you have been to Him.

OUCH!

Thinking on a very obnoxious, disrespectful, and rude person that was in my life a few weeks ago and knowing that I am not always the person that the Lord wants me to be...
Psalm 139:23 Search me, O God, and know my heart;
test me and know my anxious thoughts.

24 See if there is any offensive way in me,
and lead me in the way everlasting.

I also think on the many wonderful people that are in my life and know that I can not be as loving and giving as they are unless for the fact that the Lord changed my heart and filled me with "His" love.

Lord, help me to make my every action and word be a blessing and praise to You.

[Rarly Harley]

Originally Posted by best

Thinking on a very obnoxious, disrespectful, and rude person that was in my life a few weeks ago and knowing that I am not always the person that the Lord wants me to be...
Psalm 139:23 Search me, O God, and know my heart;
test me and know my anxious thoughts.

24 See if there is any offensive way in me,
and lead me in the way everlasting.

I also think on the many wonderful people that are in my life and know that I can not be as loving and giving as they are unless for the fact that the Lord changed my heart and filled me with "His" love.

Lord, help me to make my every action and word be a blessing and praise to You.

Judge not and you will not be judged......Nuff said.

[best]

Originally Posted by Rarly Harley

Judge not and you will not be judged......Nuff said.

The correct translation (in context) Condemn not or you will be condemned.

By the measure you judge others, you shall also be judged
... that would be the better verse to use in this case. The standard I hold others up to, the Lord will hold me up to and then some. Preachers are held to a higher standard by God. The lives and souls of others are placed in our hands and by us giving the wrong words, we can cause others to fall into sin.


We need to evaluate (judge) many things around us...even the actions of others.
If we don't, we will never see the needs of others or the dangers to self.

[cmc]

I think the point of the teaching here was for me to remember that God loved and accepted me as I was and still am, and to remember to use this model when I relate to others.

I think it's important to remember that the same grace I experienced when I first believed applies to my everyday life. I can choose to give that grace to another and accept them, forgive if necessary and just put up with how they are.

That is what He did for me:loved me as I was, offered me a better way and gave me the freedom to choose or reject Him and His plan for me. It's alot like the letting go I have learned in Alanon.

Each day brings it's own trouble and I will definitely make the wrong choices and fail miserably in my efforts to be holy. Thanks be to God, He has saved me and the eternal security I have drives me right back to His throne of GRACE every day.

[Fluttering]

"Delight yourself also in the Lord, and he shall give you the desires of your heart. Psalms 37:4

Desire is the heart of spiritual growth. if you want to grow in your spiritual life, want all that God has in store for you; desire all the love and grace he has storedd up for you. Saint Catherine fo Siena is credited with saying "God does not ask a perfectr work but only infinite desire." God wants you (us) to want him. God honors this desire for him by coming to you in great and graqcious ways.

There's an old spiritual that says, "Lord, I want to be a Christian in my heart." The key is "want to"