Articles
Blessed Is The Man / Imitators Of Good / Is Your Spiritual Life In Ruins?
Blessed Is The Man
(Kevin Heaton)
We all want to be blessed. We want a bright future. We want something worth living for. We want security. We want hope. We want strength in life. Where will we get that? How do we obtain that? What should we do? Who is truly blessed?
Satan wants us to seek the answer to these things in the sinful pleasures of the world. But God reveals to us that sin leads to death and eternal punishment, not blessedness. God also shows us that true blessedness only comes through righteousness.
Look what the psalmist wrote in Psalm 1.
“Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers; but his delight is in the law of the LORD, and on His law he meditates day and night” (1:1-2). We will be blessed when we don’t follow the paths of sin. It is a blessing to follow the way of God. The way of righteousness. We are to delight in the law of the Lord and obey His commands.
Look at the result of living in righteousness: “He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither. In all that he does, he prospers. The wicked are not so, but are like chaff that the wind drives away” (1:3-4). Strength comes from living God’s way. We will have hope, life, security. The wicked will not last. The wicked have no good future.
The psalmist reveals to us that “the wicked will not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous; for the LORD knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish” (1:5-6). True blessedness is to be blessed by the Lord with the hope of eternal life. Sin leads to punishment. Sin leads to Hell. But righteousness leads to eternal blessings.
Which path are you following? The path of sin? Or the path of righteousness? True blessings only come from living for the Lord. No other way. Follow God. Be blessed with spiritual blessings in Christ. Don’t follow after Satan and sin.
Imitators Of Good
(Kevin Heaton)
3 John 1:11 gives straightforward instruction to Christian readers: “Beloved, do not imitate evil but imitate good. Whoever does good is from God; whoever does evil has not seen God.”
John says that if you see someone doing something good and righteous then do that. If you see someone doing something evil and wrong then don’t do that. It’s not complicated. We are to learn from God through His Word what are good things and what are sinful things. Then we are to do the good and stay away from the bad. We have to find out what the will of God is and what is pleasing to Him (Ephesians 5:10, 17). And then do it. We are to abhor what is evil and cling to what is good (Romans 12:9). We are to abstain from every form of evil (1 Thessalonians 5:22).
If we choose to do good then we are proving ourselves to be of God. If we choose to do wrong then we are proving ourselves to not know God. We are to be imitators of God (Ephesians 5:1). We cannot call ourselves Christians, followers of Christ if we are not imitating His righteousness. We are to follow the examples of those who are imitating God.
So what are you imitating? What am I imitating? Are we filling our daily lives with the good things of God? Or are we imitating the sins of the world?
Don’t imitate evil. Imitate good! Imitate God. Imitate Christ. Those who do the will of the Father will go to Heaven. Those who sin will go to Hell. Who will you imitate? Where do you want to spend eternity? Choose the goodness of God over the sins of this world.
Is Your Spiritual Life In Ruins?
(Kevin Heaton)
At the end of Judah’s captivity, God began to bring His people back to Jerusalem. The first thing God wanted the people to do in restoring their city back to what it was was to rebuild the Temple. The first group that came back to Jerusalem began rebuilding the Temple. But in days to come they stopped working on it because of persecution. So for 16 years the people left the Temple of God lying in ruins.
It is here where the book of Haggai comes in. God sends His prophet Haggai with a message to the people. Take a look: In the second year of Darius the king, in the sixth month, on the first day of the month, the word of the LORD came by the hand of Haggai the prophet to Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and to Joshua the son of Jehozadak, the high priest: “Thus says the LORD of hosts: These people say the time has not yet come to rebuild the house of the LORD.” Then the word of the LORD came by the hand of Haggai the prophet, “Is it a time for you yourselves to dwell in your paneled houses, while this house lies in ruins? Now, therefore, thus says the LORD of hosts: Consider your ways. You have sown much, and harvested little. You eat, but you never have enough; you drink, but you never have your fill. You clothe yourselves, but no one is warm. And he who earns wages does so to put them into a bag with holes. Thus says the LORD of hosts: Consider your ways. Go up to the hills and bring wood and build the house, that I may take pleasure in it and that I may be glorified, says the LORD. You looked for much, and behold, it came to little. And when you brought it home, I blew it away. Why? declares the LORD of hosts. Because of My house that lies in ruins, while each of you busies himself with his own house. Therefore the heavens above you have withheld the dew, and the earth has withheld its produce. And I have called for a drought on the land and the hills, on the grain, the new wine, the oil, on what the ground brings forth, on man and beast, and on all their labors” (Haggai 1:1-11).
The people had forgotten to put God first. They let others interfere and hinder them. Then they busied themselves with their own lives, own wants, own needs. The people neglected their relationship with God. They didn’t make it their number one priority to glorify God and keep His commandments. That’s why God sent Haggai to rebuke them in order to stir them up and get them going again. Thankfully they listened. They obeyed the Word of the Lord and got back to work building the Temple.
What about us today? No, God doesn’t want us to build a physical Temple today. But He does want our hearts to be His temple. As Christians Paul tells us that we are the temple of God and His Spirit dwells in us (1 Corinthians 3:16). We are living temples for the Lord. Our lives. Our hearts. Our minds. So how are we doing as the temple of God? How is our relationship with the Lord? Are we neglecting God by not making Him the number one priority in our lives? Do our hearts lie in ruins when it comes to God and righteousness?
Let’s make sure the temple of God is not lying in ruins today. If it is then the Lord says that we need to get busy and get to working on it. Let’s make God first priority in our hearts and lives. Seek first His kingdom and His righteousness. Then God will take care of us in what we need in this life.
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