- If you’re certain that a specific action is indeed God-approved, don’t let popular opinion sway you.
- Just because you embrace the Lord’s ways (Isaiah 55:8, Proverbs 3:5-6) doesn’t mean that others do too.
“For My thoughts are not your thoughts, Nor are your ways My ways,” says the Lord. “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, So are My ways higher than your ways, And My thoughts than your thoughts. So shall My word be that goes forth from My mouth; It shall not return to Me void, But it shall accomplish what I please, And it shall prosper in the thing for which I sent it. (Isaiah 55:8-9,11 NKJV)
Trust in the Lord with all your heart, And lean not on your own understanding; In all your ways acknowledge Him, And He shall direct your paths. (Proverbs 3:5-6 NKJV)
- Stand firm! Forget about keeping up with the Joneses, just keep up with Jesus! Scripture tells us (James 4:1-8 NLT):
What is causing the quarrels and fights among you? Isn’t it the whole army of evil desires at war within you? You want what you don’t have, so you scheme and kill to get it.
You are jealous for what others have, and you can’t possess it, so you fight and quarrel to take it away from them. And yet the reason you don’t have what you want is that you don’t ask God for it. And even when you do ask, you don’t get it because your whole motive is wrong — you want only what will give you pleasure. You adulterers! Don’t you realize that friendship with this world makes you an enemy of God? I say it again, that if your aim is to enjoy this world, you can’t be a friend of God. What do you think the Scriptures mean when they say that the Holy Spirit, whom God has placed within us, jealously longs for us to be faithful? He gives us more and more strength to stand against such evil desires. As the Scriptures say, “God sets himself against the proud, but he shows favor to the humble.”
So humble yourselves before God. Resist the Devil, and he will flee from you. Draw close to God, and God will draw close to you. Wash your hands, you sinners; purify your hearts, you hypocrites. [Emphasis added]
Points to ponder:
- Life is simple when you know whose WAYS really count, the Lord’s. NOT your Own ways. NOT the ways of Others either; especially if they lack your ‘Christ is Right’ certitude.
- The Christ is Right! Get your prize. Your earthly blessings; your eternal salvation when you receive ‘the crown of life’ up yonder.
Do you not know that those who run in a race all run, but one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may obtain it. And everyone who competes for the prize is temperate in all things. Now they do it to obtain a perishable crown, but we for an imperishable crown.
1 Corinthians 9:24-25 NKJV
Photo credit: TheHighCalling/flickr (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
66 Assurance Way 