What a convicting message for me to consider. But when I start looking at what the scriptures, I see that it isn’t just “what I’m loudest about” but that language like “don’t let any” and “only such speech” are the kinds of words used to describe how we are to live and speak and behave as vessels of the holy spirit of God.
Do not let unwholesome [foul, profane, worthless, vulgar] words ever come out of your mouth, but only such speech as is good for building up others, according to the need and the occasion, so that it will be a blessing to those who hear [you speak]. And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God [but seek to please Him], by whom you were sealed and marked [branded as God’s own] for the day of redemption [the final deliverance from the consequences of sin]. Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor [perpetual animosity, resentment, strife, fault-finding] and slander be put away from you, along with every kind of malice [all spitefulness, verbal abuse, malevolence]. Be kind and helpful to one another, tender-hearted [compassionate, understanding], forgiving one another [readily and freely], just as God in Christ also forgave you. Ephesians 4:29-32 AMP
Lord, help us.
You know what, friend? We have an opportunity to repent in this area of our lives. We have an opportunity to be quick to listen, slow to anger, and show to speak — like Almighty God is with us.
As we’ve heard before, the first step towards recovery is admitting we have a problem.
Instead of getting offended at “such a preposterous accusation” when we read such a convicting question — what if we realize as a Christian that we got mad or dismissed a question where the bar was set much lower than the Word of God calls us to live. And for those quick to throw out any commands as “old law”, that’s Paul in the new testament, friends. That isn’t law — that’s whether we are walking with God as vessels of His holy spirit or not.
This morning, I am considering the word “intentional”.
As I woke up this morning to the darkness and the sound of hard rain, my waking prayer was, “Lord, don’t let it be 6:20 yet.” Because 6:20 is pretty much the latest that I can get up 7 days a week to let the dogs out in the morning and it not throw our morning routine completely off schedule (and not leave us with puppy surprises on the floor inside the house). And the Lord was faithful when I looked at the clock and the first digit was either a 4 or a 5, and I settled my mind for a prayer of praise before falling back asleep.
And 6:00 came and my Monday morning alarm went off — reminding me that today usually includes a commute into the office. My normal intention for Monday mornings is to make the hour commute into Greenville, SC (where our office is) from Campobello, SC (where we live) — and work the rest of the week from home. But weather, driving conditions, evening maintenance work requirements, and other requirements can affect that schedule.
This got me thinking about how having intentions and justifying not following through with those intentions can be a bad thing. In fact, the better we are at planning and envisioning the future, and learning from our past, the greater chance that diverting from the intended path is going to be a bad thing. So, as I get older, I pay attention to these “adaptations” and “reactions” to insure that I’m not slowly giving up on my intentions and direction to be distracted away to something else.
I began to wonder about this from a Biblical perspective. I realize that God is all knowing, and that He does not change — and I realized that we “adapt” either because something happened that we didn’t plan for, or because we have abandoned our original intentions for something else. But God isn’t surprised by anything, and He doesn’t change because of the circumstances surrounding Him. He has a plan and a purpose that will not be thwarted.
So this had me wondering about my own life and how much of it is intentional versus how much is changed, swayed, moved, affected by whatever is going on around me. I wondered how easy or difficult it might be for something around me to influence me to react, to adapt, to divert from my intended plan. To put this in human terms, think about advertising, and click bait, and sponsored search results, and posts/articles with “trigger words” on the Internet and how these are used to distract us away into where someone wants us to go. Now imagine an unseen spiritual enemy who can do the same thing to tempt us away from our life’s purpose and has learned what bait works generation after generation and time after time.
If I’ve had vision and am pragmatic, my plan is to “Work in the office on Mondays unless I have scheduled maintenance or the driving conditions are bad”, then waking up to rain on a Monday and rejoicing that I can sleep in a bit longer is an intentional plan that I’ve made that makes sense, is efficient, and is effective. But if my intention is to “Work in the office on Mondays” but I have no solid plan to make this a reality — and I rarely am there because I wake up and “struggle against my intentions” to constantly adapt, or come up with excuses, or justify my abandoning my original intentions — this does not make sense, is inefficient, and is ineffective.
Don’t misunderstand, I’m not trying to advocate the chains of OCD schedules and plans — but I’m talking about having vision and being pragmatic — both of which are how we see God operating — and both thwart the opportunity enemies to sway or distract us from our path and purpose — and both can be seen as valuable even to a person who isn’t spiritual.
I am given the flexibility to make either wise or foolish decisions — in my life — at my job — with my faith.
If I make foolish decisions (and I do), my best path is to learn from them, communicate honestly and in a timely manner with those involved, and be intentional about how to handle the situation in the future — and to be intentional. But if I’m constantly abandoning “my intentions” to chase after some distraction — a distraction indulged can become a “new intention”. This is how whole lives and families are uprooted and shattered on the rocks when a lack of purpose and firm footing exists and people are dragged this way and that way by circumstances, by feelings, by desires, by manipulations, by temptations, etc.
What do we see as The Way?
Follow God’s plan (be intentional)
Remain steadfast in trial
Ask for wisdom
Grow in wisdom and peace walking God’s Way
It is useless getting mad, if instead we:
Do it my own way
Are ruled by our desires
Doubt or don’t ask to know God’s Way
Insist on being foolish and resisting the surrender that would free us from slavery to the tricks of the enemy
And He was saying to them all, “If anyone wishes to follow Me [as My disciple], he must deny himself [set aside selfish interests], and take up his cross daily [expressing a willingness to endure whatever may come] and follow Me [believing in Me, conforming to My example in living and, if need be, suffering or perhaps dying because of faith in Me]. For whoever wishes to save his life [in this world] will [eventually] lose it [through death], but whoever loses his life [in this world] for My sake, he is the one who will save it [from the consequences of sin and separation from God]. For what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world [wealth, fame, success], and loses or forfeits himself? For whoever is ashamed [here and now] of Me and My words, the Son of Man will be ashamed of him when He comes in His glory and the glory of the [heavenly] Father and of the holy angels. Luke 9:23-26 AMP
Consider it nothing but joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you fall into various trials. Be assured that the testing of your faith [through experience] produces endurance [leading to spiritual maturity, and inner peace]. And let endurance have its perfect result and do a thorough work, so that you may be perfect and completely developed [in your faith], lacking in nothing. If any of you lacks wisdom [to guide him through a decision or circumstance], he is to ask of [our benevolent] God, who gives to everyone generously and without rebuke or blame, and it will be given to him. But he must ask [for wisdom] in faith, without doubting [God’s willingness to help], for the one who doubts is like a billowing surge of the sea that is blown about and tossed by the wind. For such a person ought not to think or expect that he will receive anything [at all] from the Lord, being a double-minded man, unstable and restless in all his ways [in everything he thinks, feels, or decides]. James 1:2-8 AMP
Tonight, I walked into a cigar lounge in Boiling Springs where I had never visited before. I grabbed a few sticks, sat down in a big, comfy chair and started reading quietly in Genesis from my phone.
But fairly quickly, conversations struck up and I was making new acquaintances. And no one batted an eye at my answer that I missed an old gathering of guys where we got together for cigars and Bible study — nor was anyone surprised as we discussed everything from man caves, shooting pool, playing poker, singing karaoke, sports, politics, raising kids, or whatever anyone wanted to talk about.
As people came and left, everyone interacted as if we had all been friends. People from completely different races, political backgrounds, economic levels, careers, ages and sexes were not only walking through the doors — they were all on equal ground as we talked and shared, laughed, etc. Even as a man from a different race and religion that I had never met mentioned his father’s recent eye surgery, and I asked about how he was recovering, and even as I asked for his father’s name so that I could pray for him — there was no offense, there was no opposition, there was no pretense.
I couldn’t help but think of Jesus and why he preferred “eating with sinners” to eating with the religious leaders of the day. And I wasn’t looking at these men and assuming they were hellbound and needed me to save them — I was seeing the same need for relationship, the same need for interaction, the same need for hope, love and truth as the people I will sit beside tomorrow morning in church.
These men weren’t shocked or repulsed by the natural, honest references to Jesus or the Bible that came out in my conversation any more than they were shocked by my talking about my job or my hobbies — because I wasn’t trying to force them to convert to my career or hobby any more than I was trying to force them to convert to my religion. Jesus is just as big a part of my life as anything else (actually bigger), so it was natural for Him to come up in conversation without trying to force or manipulate the conversation in that direction.
I neither had to hide who I am in Christ Jesus, nor did I have to fit in to their conversations. When the topic of conversation was something I didn’t know anything about, I admitted as much and they didn’t think me less of a man, etc. In this, I saw how I will share my faith openly and genuinely when it is a valued, core part of who I am, and I was not hated, shunned, or rejected — because they respected how I respected them as well.
It also reminded me of the times when I have been able to share my faith naturally in the workplace, in the streets, inside the jail, inside bars, inside strip clubs, in my home, in singing groups, in the presence of drug dealers, prostitutes, criminals, pornographers, convicted murders, rapists and child molesters — and even with people who think themselves to be “quite honorable and religious”.
I understand that many people won’t understand why I more often sit at tables “with those people” instead of at tables with leaders, politicians, and honorable folks that I also know personally. I understand that some would be afraid to be close to the dangers of the dark world that surrounds many of these people and places. I’m not judging you. You go where you are called. I’ll go where I am called.
These are “my people”. I walked with these people when I was still one of them, and the Lord protected me even when I was walking deeper into the darkness with them. Now that I am walking with Him, I carry Him with me. I walk as an Ambassador of Christ — naked and unashamed of my faith, my God, my weaknesses, my conviction, my salvation by grace through faith, and the new creation that I am in Christ Jesus.
I say this to encourage you. Look past what you “think ministry looks like”. Know your own testimony. Know Him so close and personal that His Word is on your lips even more than your greatest hobby or interest. If He is not truly first in our life, we need to fix that. If we are not excited about Him as much as that new purchase, we need to fix that. And when He truly is our first love — there is no fear in our excitement about Him. And genuine excitement is peculiar, is even so curious to others that it is contagious.
We do not live in a place where people haven’t heard the name of Jesus. People who are in the bushes and the brambles and the shadows around here — many have heard the name of Jesus and seen it blasphemed time and time again by people who neither love them nor truly love the Lord. I know many people who have never turned their back on the Lord, but they have turned their back on the organizations that are loud and proud of their self-righteousness and their expecting people to meet their expectations of holiness — when they are far from guilt beneath all the whitewash. I know children who are abandoning “the church of their youth” because they must in order to not depart from the Word — because they feel Jesus is nowhere to be found in those places. WE MUST REPENT!
I love the Church. I love the Saints. I love the Lord. I love you. I love these new people that I am meeting.
I will not delay in sharing my faith as it is part of me and is clearly and naturally on display as a huge part of who I am — nor do I need to manufacture a pretense in order to walk them through a Roman road tract before they leave my presence each time we meet. I look forward to each time that I get to lift up the name of Jesus in their presence, and I trust that He continues to draw men to himself. I look forward to those moments the Holy Spirit stirs me to press in deeper and share my testimony and this hope that I have in Christ Jesus — and I’m eager to make disciples and baptize whoever will believe with their heart that Jesus is Lord and Savior and confess with their mouth that God raised Him from the dead to life, just as we have been raised to newness of life.
I want to encourage you to not just be religious, and to definitely not be complacent about your faith. I encourage you to examine your own testimony and to see who might be “where you were”. If (like the elder brother of the prodigal) you were called out of decades of sitting in a church pew and going through the motions to a real, alive, Holy Spirit empowered walk with God — that testimony needs to be shared with the religious and the complacent to know the love of God that stirs us into truly loving and serving others. If (like the prodigal) you ran into the darkness only to turn back to run home to the Lord — that testimony needs to be shared with those in need of the love of God that stirs us to truly loving and serving others. If you don’t have a testimony, you need to spend some time with God and get that right while there is still time.
Lord, let our love be genuine. Let our lives lift a pleasing aroma to you. Amen.
But thanks be to God, who always leads us in triumph in Christ, and through us spreads and makes evident everywhere the sweet fragrance of the knowledge of Him. For we are the sweet fragrance of Christ [which ascends] to God, [discernible both] among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing; to the latter one an aroma from death to death [a fatal, offensive odor], but to the other an aroma from life to life [a vital fragrance, living and fresh]. And who is adequate and sufficiently qualified for these things? For we are not like many, [acting like merchants] peddling God’s word [shortchanging and adulterating God’s message]; but from pure [uncompromised] motives, as [commissioned and sent] from God, we speak [His message] in Christ in the sight of God. 2 Corinthians 2:14-17 AMP
You [believers], like living stones, are being built up into a spiritual house for a holy and dedicated priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices [that are] acceptable and pleasing to God through Jesus Christ. 1 Peter 2:5 AMP
Therefore become imitators of God [copy Him and follow His example], as well-beloved children [imitate their father]; and walk continually in love [that is, value one another—practice empathy and compassion, unselfishly seeking the best for others], just as Christ also loved you and gave Himself up for us, an offering and sacrifice to God [slain for you, so that it became] a sweet fragrance. Ephesians 5:1-2 AMP
Harold J. Ballinger 