At the end of the law there is righteousness before God. If I were to strive and keep the law and be blameless and perfect on all counts, I get righteousness. But here God is giving me all the righteousness that I need before Him – righteousness through Christ.

Don’t try to earn it…. Be found in it.

Genesis chapter 32 starts off with Jacob preparing presents for Esau.   This was a pretty smart move on behalf of Jacob.
In modern business parlance, you could look at all this as bribery…
But, I guess I thought Jacob was demonstrating some good business / political principles here….

The Bible says that gifts out of good intention pleases the receiver, but gifts with the intention of gaining favor and pushing someone to do something that he ordinarily would not have done (had the gifts not been given), in other words, bribery, is illegal and ….. a sin
(cf Pro 15:27, 19:6, 29:4, 1Ti 6:9-10)
This is something that Christians struggle with at times  – a balance of utilizing good business principles versus relying completely on God.
I suppose you could argue that Jacob should have simply relied on God to prepare the way for Jacob’s meeting with Esau (and rightly so)
That said, if you were in Jacob’s shoes, think about how you would have behaved if you had no way of knowing that Esau did not hold any grudge against Jacob and Jacob was completely forgiven (20 years of fretting gone down the drain!! – a lesson on the futility of worry, i guess) … and how you were worried over your past deceptive acts …
I do think that clearly our reliance should be on God and His work and providence first and foremost. (what do you say?)
I believe God also wants us to be actively partnering with him. So, I think after we first pray to God about a situation, we should also do the work that we are called to do by God for the situation as well.  This is where I think good business / political principles can come into play – as long as they are clearly aligned with the will of God & the Word of God.  Again, this is a fine line to walk, and a line that can only be blessed by the Holy Spirit.
We cannot walk this line on our own power or smarts.  Do you pray to God to show you the work He wants you to do in your life?  Do you also ask God to show you the work to be done in various situations that arise in your life?  Do you enjoy working with God?

Share your thoughts

Keywords: keep, diligence, issues of life, deceitful, perverse, straight, right, ponder and remove

How about turning these instructions from the preacher into prayer requests unto the Lord?

[Hints: Use each of the keywords to pray]

1. Pride – all believers are prone to fall into this trap, more so a preacher whose ministry is in the public eye
2. Riding the hobby horse – if a preacher is not in the practice of expositing the Bible, he falls into the trap of preaching from a few favorite topics and ends up preaching “How to….” sermons.
3. Taking a cheap shot from the pulpit – This is a subtle danger for every preacher to try and wrap a particular point in his message around a brother or sister in the congregation. A temptation to bring out an application pointed at someone in the congregation. “You know who is at the forefront of your mind. That face that is constantly there as you prepare your message. Perhaps a critic. Perhaps someone who has angered you. Perhaps someone who has made it their mission to bring you down, so you are tempted to make it your mission to launch applicational mortars from the relative security of the pulpit. Don’t. Preach the Word for the benefit of all. Don’t take aim and fire cheap shots. To do so is a poor strategy on many levels, not least the spiritual level!”
4. Managing the clock – Running out of time by focusing too long on point 1,2 & 3 and rushing through the rest
5. Disconnected from the congregation – Unable to gauge the maturity level of the congregation.
6. Insensitivity to the move of the Holy Spirit – Unable to move in the prompting of the Holy Spirit by being too rigid with the manuscript
7. Struggle to alter the hearers – A deliberate intention to change the hearers (force a change). It is our job to preach, the Holy Spirit’s job to convince, correct, comfort and challenge
8. Majoring the minors – Temptation to dwell on the peripheral and neglect the core message of the text. Missing the original intention of the Holy Spirit in providing the text to us.
9. Struggle to get the congregation to respond – Expect the audience to ‘mind read’ the preacher and give an accurate answer to the question thrown at them. this sometimes frustrates the congregation may even cause the hearers to withdraw into their shells even more. Stop the Quiz time.

Any more that you can think of?

W H Griffith Thomas

If our names are written in the Lamb’s book of life, then we live intensely watchful by the empowerment of the Holy Spirit, to not (read as ‘never ever’) indulge in anything that might cost us our access into heaven.

Rev 21:27 [GSNT] Nothing unclean will ever enter it, nor anyone who indulges in abominable practices and falsehoods, but only those who are written in the Lamb’s book of life.

Points to ponder:

1. There is nothing like ‘minor’ sins and ‘major’ sins; All sins lead to death – even lies [Rev 21:8]
2. Are you living a life worthy of your calling? [Col 1:10]
3. Are you watching over your life and your doctrine? [1Ti 4:16]
4. Playing with sin is like playing with fire. [Pro 6:27]. Is it worth at the end?

[Gal 6:1 Goodspeed New Testament]  But if a man is caught doing something wrong, brothers, you are spiritual, and you must set him right, in a spirit of gentleness. Think of yourself, for you may be tempted too.

That being said, there can be two opposites to bringing about correction; one, to Judge the brother and write him off as beyond reformation or, two, to come with a brick-bat with all arrogance with malice. The antidote for both these are in Matthew 7:1-5 [1] “Pass no more judgments upon other people, so that you may not have judgment passed upon you. [2] For you will be judged by the standard you judge by, and men will pay you back with the same measure you have used with them. [3] Why do you keep looking at the speck in your brother’s eye, and pay no attention to the beam that is in your own? [4]   How can you say to your brother, ‘Just let me get that speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a beam in your own? [5] You hypocrite! First get the beam out of your own eye, and then you can see to get the speck out of your brother’s eye. [Goodspeed New Testament]

Therefore our responsibility is to pray and to persuade with all gentleness and humility.

…Hence we pray!!

Consider how we struggle to stand out, make ourselves heard, make an impact, leave a ripple, start a fire (in the good sense) etc….

What would you want your life to count for?

At the end of the day when the stock is taken and when the spoils are divided, when the smoke clears and the eye focuses on the arena, would you still be standing?

Excerpts from Pastor John Piper’s message…

(HT: DG)

Galatians 6:14

But may it never be that I would boast, except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.

You don’t have to know a lot of things for your life to make a lasting difference in the world. But you do have to know the few great things that matter, and then be willing to live for them and die for them. The people that make a durable difference in the world are not the people who have mastered many things, but who have been mastered by a few great things. If you want your life to count, if you want the ripple effect of the pebbles you drop to become waves that reach the ends of the earth and roll on for centuries and into eternity, you don’t have to have a high IQ or EQ; you don’t have to have to have good looks or riches; you don’t have to come from a fine family or a fine school. You have to know a few great, majestic, unchanging, obvious, simple, glorious things, and be set on fire by them…. (emphasis added)

Read the whole article here

Having established the truth that God’s saving grace is the basis of salvation, the Holy Spirit moves Paul to talk about the life after a person is saved. He establishes the mechanics of Christian growth, beginning with Sanctification.

Looking intently at the question we need ask who would be the ones asking this question actually?

Such a question is not unique to the first century but can be heard even in the 21st century.

There would be 2 types of people who would ask this question

• Legalist
• Liberals

The Legalist would find it hard to believe that God accepts a sinner on no other ground expect pure faith. This is hard for him to digest. He feels that unless he has contributed something towards his salvation in terms of abiding with a list of do’s and don’ts, he does not actually qualify. Salvation could not be just grace….

The Liberal, who tries to fool everyone around him including perhaps himself, wants to find an excuse or a pretext to continue in his old life all the while adding ‘Christianity’ as an add-on to his existing life and not a substitution.

Before we quickly dismiss the question and move on, we need to examine ourselves in the light of this whether we fall into one of these two or are we appalled, like Paul, at the very idea of a believer continuing in sin.