Wake-Up Call

“Wake-Up Call”

By Zach Wood

2 Timothy 3:16-17 NLT

All Scripture is inspired by God and is useful to teach us what is true and to make us realize what is wrong in our lives. It corrects us when we are wrong and teaches us to do what is right.  God uses it to prepare and equip his people to do every good work.

We’ve all had experiences that have either scared us or gotten our attention to the point where we make a change.  We’ve had friends and family scare us to be funny and we have done the same to others as well.  We’ve had moments where certain things scare us in one way or another.  Alarm clocks can scare us awake sometimes, right?  We don’t like them.  I don’t like mine!  Why is that little box making that annoying sound??  I want to sleep!! 

We all get scared by different things.  We also have experiences where our attention quickly focuses back onto someone or something.  As humans, we easily become distracted and taken off-course from where we should be focused.  It happens every day.  I often tell people I have a bad memory.  Some things I remember and other things I have to be reminded constantly of because I forget.  I hate that!  I need to be reminded as well as many of you.  We all need reminded of things and need our attention redirected often.

We all need so-called “wake-up calls”.  We don’t like them at first, but we find that they are just what we need to refocus on whatever task we need to focus on.  God has to do this often in our lives.  He works hard to give us “wake-up call” moments so that we will get back into gear and on to the path where He wants us.  His Word is full of wisdom, advice and commands to help get us back on the path where we need to be. 

His Word should inspire us and teach us what is Truth and make us realize what we are doing wrong in our lives so that we can come back to following Him.  His Word points out the bad in our lives so that we will repent and turn back to Him.  His Word is alive and active and penetrates deeply into our very souls.  His Word is powerful and it needs to often “set us straight” again. 

I know we often don’t like the “wake-up calls” we get, but we know we need them and we come to appreciate the ways God uses to bring our attention back to focusing on Him.  His Word is to be a lamp unto our feet and a light for our path. 

We all need to heed His “wake-up calls”! 

The Continued Challenge To Love

“The Continued Challenge To Love”

By Zach Wood

2 John 1:6 NLT

Love means doing what God has commanded us, and he has commanded us to love one another, just as you heard from the beginning.

If you were to ask me if I love my family, I would quickly give you an answer of “Of course! Why wouldn’t I?”  I strive hard every day to be the husband and father that I know I need to be for my family.  It is quite the challenge each day, but I am trying hard and asking God to give me the strength and wisdom I need to be not only a good husband and father, but a Godly one most of all. 

While I strive hard to be loving in my home, I also need to remember that I am commanded to love those outside my home as well.  I am called to love other people in my family, my co-workers and others I come in contact with on a daily basis.  I may not be close to every single person I meet, but God has given me the charge to do my best to love everyone I meet. 

Loving can be downright hard to do at times.  I find that there are really easy people to love and then there are really difficult people to love.  Then, I remember a quote I read recently from TobyMac that says, “Love difficult people.  You are one of them.”  Ouch!  Just a huge dose of reality there!  When I think it’s challenging to love others, others find it challenging to love me as well.  Tough pill to swallow!

We all have a continued challenge to love others.  Every day of my life, I am trying to learn more of what it means to not only love God, but how He wants me to love people around me.  In doing that, I am loving God when I love others. It is often hard to love others!  We all struggle with it.  When we consider it tough to love difficult people, just remember how challenging it was when Christ poured out love to others even when people spit in His face and when they crucified Him.  He prayed for them!  Wow!

What is our problem with loving other people?  God has commanded us to set aside petty differences and do our best to appreciate one another.  Even dealing with differences that are hard to live with, we still need to make an effort to show love in any ways we can.  We should not only love because He tells us to, but we should desire to love because He loved us and His unconditional love drove Him to the Cross to demonstrate that love.  Now that is a dose of deep love! 

We have a continued challenge to love each day.  What will we do with that challenge?