What Are We Waiting For?

 YouTube Channel Video Devo

https://youtu.be/fOilqEHDdVU?si=PlKcft6H9XvNWVSm

“What Are We Waiting For?”

Matthew 9:37-38 NLT

He said to his disciples, “The harvest is great, but the workers are few. So pray to the Lord who is in charge of the harvest; ask him to send more workers into his fields.”

 

The past couple of weeks, a song stood out to me on the radio.  For King & Country “What Are We Waiting For” got my attention and I watched the video on YouTube and listened to the lyrics fully.  Wow, I was totally blown away and it was so inspiring!  If you get a chance, please go watch the lyric video and just take in the song and what it means.  It’s so powerful!

 

The 2 lines that stood out to me the most were:

Why are we wasting all the time like someone’s making more?

What if we could be the light that no one could ignore?

After listening to this song, and especially these 2 lines in the chorus, it makes me think of all the different times in our lives when we consider things to be urgent.  Things at home call for urgency.  Things at work come up and become urgent.  People reach out to contact us for an urgent matter we need to figure out.  The list could go on and on.  There seems to be a sense of urgency about so much in our lives each and every day in some way.

 

There’s nothing at all wrong with having a sense of urgency to take care of things with work, family and friends, but I cannot help but wonder why we don’t have the same sense of urgency when it comes to spreading God’s Word to people Who don’t know Him and need to hear His Word?  Why does it seem so often like everything else is urgent, but our mission to share God’s love with others doesn’t seem as urgent? 

 

We seem to waste a lot of time on things in life that we often think are more important.  We waste time on a lot if we really think about it.  I have been thinking about this song a lot and the call that God has given to us to make the most of the time we have each and every day.  We need to be much more urgent in our walk with God as He has called us to share His love with others.

 

We definitely need to be the light that no one can ignore.  We often tend to put off a lot of things we need to do, including reaching out to people who need to know His love.  We also fail to be urgent in reaching out to people to make amends with them if we’ve wronged them or tell them they’ve hurt us.  We leave so many different things unattended and God wants those things dealt with and not left alone.  What are we waiting for? 

 

We need to live life with more of an urgency in sharing God’s love.  His mission is clear for us to love others.  What are we waiting for?

The Rear-View Pitfall

 YouTube Channel Video Devo

https://youtu.be/POF1cRGFjJ0?si=lMA4DlvdNlwahuRz

“The Rear-View Pitfall”

Isaiah 43:18-19 NIV

Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past.  See, I am doing a new thing!  Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?  I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland.

 

I want you all to imagine a ridiculous scenario.  Imagine not only yourself, but everyone else as well driving down the road with eyes focused on the rear-view mirror.  How in the world would anyone ever see where they are going?  It seems like a very insane thing to do, right?  People would be smashing into each other constantly and it would be mass chaos.  Sometimes traffic is still mass chaos, right??  Haha!

 

None of us would even consider keeping our eyes glued(figuratively speaking, of course!) to the mirror while driving.  If we are always looking back behind us, we never will see what’s coming as we continue to drive down the road. 

 

While this illustration obviously would be extremely hazardous to our safety and others around us, this is exactly how so many of us live our lives in our walk with God.  Not only does Isaiah say to forget the past, but the Apostle Paul told us that as well!  We are never to fully focus on what lies in the past.  However, so many of us focus on things in our past and we can’t get past that.  We dwell on it and it seems to come back to haunt us a lot. 

 

I have a very bad habit of focusing on the past and all the dumb things I’ve done.  The enemy constantly reminds me of what I’ve done and then I think those things define me.  I often find myself thinking everyone else is smarter than me and I always do dumb things.  Satan is really good at getting me to focus on my past and I’ve got to learn to not dwell on those things. 

 

God reminds me that I am not dumb and that I am His child.  He loves me and wants great things for my life and my future.  What I need to do instead is laugh at myself and move on with life so that I can enjoy the bright future He has planned ahead.

 

How about you?  Can you relate to any of these things I’m dealing with on a daily basis?  Are you struggling as well to put the past behind and look straight ahead into the wonderful new things God has planned? 

 

For so many of us, we need to end the rear-view pitfall and focus on all that God has in store for us for our future!

The Simplest, Yet Hardest Command

 YouTube Channel Video Devo

https://youtu.be/Icrv5W5xBKA?si=Vid8dJtJ8UF911zJ

“The Simplest, Yet Hardest Command”

John 15:2 NIV

My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you.

 

This passage came up the past week as the verse of the day in the Bible app.  Each time I come across this passage, I am reminded of two things. First, it’s one of the most simple commands to understand.  You don’t need a college or seminary degree to understand what it means.  Second, even though it’s a simple command, it must be one of the hardest commands to live out in our lives.

 

I often find myself wondering why it seems so difficult to love some people.  I want to love others with a genuine love of Christ.  I want them to see Him in me and through me.  However, I’m often finding it hard to love people who are way different than me.  Instead of taking the perspective and attitude that I can love on people and learn so much from them in how they are different, I find myself feeling like I want to stick with small talk and go to talk to others I get along with better.

 

I know I’m not alone in this feeling.  As I consider this, I’m remembering 2 different quotes I’ve seen in the past from TobyMac.  One is “Love Difficult People.  You’re one of them.” The other quote is “When Jesus said love your neighbor, He knew your neighbor would act, look, believe and love differently than you.  It’s kind of the whole point.”

 

Those 2 quotes are so very powerful and they should stick in our minds every day when we encounter others who we won’t feel as comfortable talking to.  We are commanded to love others, especially those who are different from us.  I tend to often forget God wants me to learn from others that are different from me.  I often want to shy away from getting into conversations that make me a bit uncomfortable. 

 

We all need to remember the people Jesus came into contact with on a daily basis.  He got his hands dirty talking to people who were way different and He interacted with them to show the love of God.  God calls us to live this command out and reach out to people in any ways we can to show His love.

 

Funny thing is, even if we talk to people who are different from us, that doesn’t mean we have to agree with what they say or what they do.  We can respectfully disagree and still show the love of God.  However, I am not good at conversations where I disagree with people.  I’ve just never been good at those discussions.  I need to remember that I can learn from them and they can learn from me.  Showing love and respect is the key. 

 

Jesus told us to love others.  No one is excluded from that command.