Current topic: Introduction to Salt of the Earth – a study worth reading.
Good morning.
In our last message we were encouraged to pray for the Lord to have His name hallowed, His Kingdom come and His will be done in and through our lives (from Matthew 6:9, 10). Have you read it?
Having the Lord’s name hallowed through our lives demands something from us as well, and involves our conduct and actions. We’re going to do some self-examination today.
We’re not of this world (John 15:19), but are ambassadors for the Kingdom of God. How people see us behave determine their impression of God. “Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father who is in heaven,” (Matthew 5:16). We may speak one thing, but live another or we may be totally sold out to Jesus, but have certain habits that do not glorify His name. Satan loves to amplify our sins in the minds of the unsaved. ‘He claims to be a Christian, but do Christians do things like that? If he’s a Christian, I don’t want to be one.’
Would the Kingdom of God come in the lives of your colleagues based on what they see in you? The Lord once sent a missionary to a tribe with the express instruction to not say a word about Jesus, but to just live among them, which he did. When he had passed on, the Lord sent another one with the instruction to tell them about Jesus. When they heard him, they got all excited. ‘We knew Jesus,’ they said. ‘We’ve buried him right here.’ Do people see Jesus in you? Would your life make people hungry to know more about Jesus? We need, however, to tell about Jesus as well. “How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them?” (Romans 10:14). We need to do both.
When we do the work of the Lord – whether we teach, encourage, evangelise, serve, lead or whatever we’re gifted for – do people see us or do they see the Lord doing it through us. When a woman once told John Wesley his message was wonderful, he replied: ‘The devil tried to tell me the same’. ‘Hallowed be your name’ means the Lord’s name should be put higher than any other and no name should take its place, especially not ours. We should not glorify man and we should pass any glory on to God. Jesus did it, John the Baptist did it and who was greater than them.
To quietly enjoy the praise of man means we approve of it and accept it and do not pass the glory to God. Whenever we sense that we are praised or even may be praised, we should repeatedly remind our listeners that whatever we do or say comes from God and only He should be praised. In Matthew 6 Jesus told of those who do things in order to be seen and to receive the glory. His response was: “I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full.”
There is a fine line between being glorified and being encouraged. If we continuously tell people that what we do or say comes from Jesus and not from us, two things happen.
1. When people then tell us they’ve enjoyed something we’ve said or done, they will do it in a way to encourage us, but the Lord gets glorified.
2. When people know we do things as ambassadors of the Lord, we will watch our steps, for we won’t want people to stumble because of us and ridicule the Lord’s name (2 Samuel 12:14).
Lord, hallowed be your name through my conduct. Please help me.
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