Liberal Christianity
No Labor with Full Benefits
Psalm 116:12
Last night our men had a brotherhood meeting at the church. Our pastor brought a lesson on “The True Christian Attitude.” He gave us some good points and talked about how we should be working harder to please the Lord. So, as I was working this morning it was pouring down rain, I had a thought. The cold front that was predicted came through with a vengeance. Oh, well, it’s not quiet that cold, yet, but after 3 days in the 70’s with beautiful sunny skies, it makes it seem like a vengeance anyway. As I was in the middle of finishing my well test the thought came to me about the benefit of having a job. It’s no secret to anyone who knows me that I do not want to work on Sundays, and in March we start 7 days a week. I enjoy teaching my class and the occasional opportunity to preach, and I’d much rather be with family in church. The question that came to me is this; if the Lord paid us to work for HIM, would we still have a job, now? In our thought for today I am reminded of what the Psalmist asked, in (Psalms 116:12 KJV). “What shall I render unto the Lord for all HIS benefits toward me?”
If you were offered a job, and the company told you that they were going to start you off at a wage that will afford you anything and everything you would every need and give you insurance at no cost, how long would it take you to say yes? The first thing that most people would want to know is what type of job it was, and how many hours a week it would require. However, the money and benefits would cause most people to jump on the job, but for the fun of it, this job also allows you freedom to do what you want, but you needed to do this job every opportunity you had. I bet you can see where this is going, can’t you?
Fact is, the money and luxuries that would be available to all of us would show us just how greedy we are; and this should make all of us ashamed. Granted we all want the perfect job, but guess what? That’s life. I don’t have the desire to work a secular job on Sundays at all, but for now that is what I have. I’m praying God will open a door to pastor the church HE has for me, but that opportunity hasn’t opened yet. However, we do have a job to do, and if we examined our lives we would see that we have benefits, freedoms, and all of our needs taken care of, pretty much. Do we earn this by doing our job?
We live our lives for the one letter word, ‘I’. God usually isn’t right where HE needs to be in our lives. When things seem to be going good for us we are happy go lucky, but when the first stone in the road comes and the road seems to get bumpier as we go down it, we then ask the LORD, ‘What’s going on? HELP ME!’ If He doesn’t answer fast enough, in our opinion, and then we start paying attention to those things of the LORD that we were totally ignoring during the good times, huh?
In today’s world if you don’t do what you were hired to do, you usually become unemployed pretty quick. The Lord hasn’t hired us to do anything either. Yet, HE has required us to be busy. We need to remember that Jesus has paid our sin dept by dying on the cross and HE offers us salvation by grace. So our dept of sin was paid for. However, we are often guilty of taking HIS grace for granted. We live for self and not for Christ. There is nobody who can really and truly prove that statement wrong either. We are not faithful to Christ whatsoever. I can hear people now saying, ‘Wait a minute! I go to church…’ Shame on us for saying we are faithful just because we go to church. I’m not saying that we shouldn’t go to church, because we need too! That is not all we have to do to be faithful to HIM though.
Paul wrote, “Moreover it is required in stewards, that a man be found faithful,” (1 Corinthians 4:2). What are we suppose to be faithful at? The word stewards means manager. His children are supposed to manage HIS kingdom business down on this earth. How is this done? We do this by being obedient to HIM and what HE has told us to do. We are to be faithful in a number of things; going to church, studying our Bible, praying, witnessing, making disciples who make disciples, etc., and there are scriptures throughout HIS Word that backs these up. However, it doesn’t stop there. We are to be faithful to HIM! Personal question; Are you faithful to HIM?
Many people who profess HIM as their Savior trade HIM in for their lusts and desires to fit into this world. We ignore the scriptures that tell us to be separate from the world, to abstain from all appearance of evil, and not to have fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but to reprove them, and we do things like Elvis Presley used to sing, “Our Way.” The scriptures for all of these are 2 Corinthians 6:17, I Corinthians 5:15; 1 Thessalonians 5:22, and Ephesians 5:11. I left out the fact that you can’t love the world and God too; that’s found in 1 John 2:15. What about the change that Christ brings into your life, (2 Corinthians 5:15 – 21)? You can say you’ve been saved and pretend all you want too, but if there was no change in your life, then you by all accounts were not saved. That’s what the Bible teaches and I believe it.
People don’t like to hear messages on servitude, but being faithful to HIM and serving HIM is what life is all about. Truth is, if we started serving God as hard as we have served this rotten world and the sin in it, then our lives would be more dedicated to God. We need to be FAITHFUL TO HIM! HE is ALL that matters! It’s not me, you or anyone else that matters, but it is HIM. Until a child of God decides to be faithful to HIM, that child will never be satisfied in their lives, because this world offers no permanent satisfaction; it is all temporary. God’s satisfaction lasts for an eternity.
We want to quote Matthew 28:18 – 20, which tells us to ‘go ye therefore and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world,” but does our lives show these verses in our actions, and do we do it? There is a misconception that it is only the pastors, deacons, and teachers who are responsible for spreading the gospel. We need to understand that it is every child of God’s responsibility to lead people to Christ. This is our job. Jesus told the disciples and others who watched HIM ascend into heaven, “ye shall be witnesses unto me, (Acts 1:8). Talking the talk is easy to do, but walking your talk is very hard, if you aren’t faithful to HIM. So, with this thought in mind, let me ask the question again, in a different way. If everything you have in life now depended upon how you served God and were faithful to HIM, meaning you could loose it all; would you still have it now?
Unfortunately we do get involved in things that bring us away from Christ and HE suddenly gets dimmer and dimmer in our lives. He still offers grace and peace to those who return to HIM, but at one point in our lives we must really see how important it is to be faithful to HIM. It’s not a game. We have a job, and we have been paid more than enough to do it. HIS love is enough. So, would you be fired today by God because of your performance for HIM? Unfortunately most of us would be unemployed. Thank God for HIS bountiful and wonderful grace.
Finally, Paul said it best about our work for God when he said, “For we are labourers together with God: ye are God's husbandry, ye are God's building. According to the grace of God which is given unto me, as a wise masterbuilder, I have laid the foundation, and another buildeth thereon. But let every man take heed how he buildeth thereupon. For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now if any man build upon this foundation gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble; Every man's work shall be made manifest: for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire; and the fire shall try every man's work of what sort it is. If any man's work abide which he hath built thereupon, he shall receive a reward. If any man's work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss: but he himself shall be saved; yet so as by fire,” (1 Corinthians 3:9 – 15).
This should cause us to render the question, “What shall I render unto the Lord for all HIS benefits toward me?”
No Labor with Full Benefits
Psalm 116:12
Last night our men had a brotherhood meeting at the church. Our pastor brought a lesson on “The True Christian Attitude.” He gave us some good points and talked about how we should be working harder to please the Lord. So, as I was working this morning it was pouring down rain, I had a thought. The cold front that was predicted came through with a vengeance. Oh, well, it’s not quiet that cold, yet, but after 3 days in the 70’s with beautiful sunny skies, it makes it seem like a vengeance anyway. As I was in the middle of finishing my well test the thought came to me about the benefit of having a job. It’s no secret to anyone who knows me that I do not want to work on Sundays, and in March we start 7 days a week. I enjoy teaching my class and the occasional opportunity to preach, and I’d much rather be with family in church. The question that came to me is this; if the Lord paid us to work for HIM, would we still have a job, now? In our thought for today I am reminded of what the Psalmist asked, in (Psalms 116:12 KJV). “What shall I render unto the Lord for all HIS benefits toward me?”
If you were offered a job, and the company told you that they were going to start you off at a wage that will afford you anything and everything you would every need and give you insurance at no cost, how long would it take you to say yes? The first thing that most people would want to know is what type of job it was, and how many hours a week it would require. However, the money and benefits would cause most people to jump on the job, but for the fun of it, this job also allows you freedom to do what you want, but you needed to do this job every opportunity you had. I bet you can see where this is going, can’t you?
Fact is, the money and luxuries that would be available to all of us would show us just how greedy we are; and this should make all of us ashamed. Granted we all want the perfect job, but guess what? That’s life. I don’t have the desire to work a secular job on Sundays at all, but for now that is what I have. I’m praying God will open a door to pastor the church HE has for me, but that opportunity hasn’t opened yet. However, we do have a job to do, and if we examined our lives we would see that we have benefits, freedoms, and all of our needs taken care of, pretty much. Do we earn this by doing our job?
We live our lives for the one letter word, ‘I’. God usually isn’t right where HE needs to be in our lives. When things seem to be going good for us we are happy go lucky, but when the first stone in the road comes and the road seems to get bumpier as we go down it, we then ask the LORD, ‘What’s going on? HELP ME!’ If He doesn’t answer fast enough, in our opinion, and then we start paying attention to those things of the LORD that we were totally ignoring during the good times, huh?
In today’s world if you don’t do what you were hired to do, you usually become unemployed pretty quick. The Lord hasn’t hired us to do anything either. Yet, HE has required us to be busy. We need to remember that Jesus has paid our sin dept by dying on the cross and HE offers us salvation by grace. So our dept of sin was paid for. However, we are often guilty of taking HIS grace for granted. We live for self and not for Christ. There is nobody who can really and truly prove that statement wrong either. We are not faithful to Christ whatsoever. I can hear people now saying, ‘Wait a minute! I go to church…’ Shame on us for saying we are faithful just because we go to church. I’m not saying that we shouldn’t go to church, because we need too! That is not all we have to do to be faithful to HIM though.
Paul wrote, “Moreover it is required in stewards, that a man be found faithful,” (1 Corinthians 4:2). What are we suppose to be faithful at? The word stewards means manager. His children are supposed to manage HIS kingdom business down on this earth. How is this done? We do this by being obedient to HIM and what HE has told us to do. We are to be faithful in a number of things; going to church, studying our Bible, praying, witnessing, making disciples who make disciples, etc., and there are scriptures throughout HIS Word that backs these up. However, it doesn’t stop there. We are to be faithful to HIM! Personal question; Are you faithful to HIM?
Many people who profess HIM as their Savior trade HIM in for their lusts and desires to fit into this world. We ignore the scriptures that tell us to be separate from the world, to abstain from all appearance of evil, and not to have fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but to reprove them, and we do things like Elvis Presley used to sing, “Our Way.” The scriptures for all of these are 2 Corinthians 6:17, I Corinthians 5:15; 1 Thessalonians 5:22, and Ephesians 5:11. I left out the fact that you can’t love the world and God too; that’s found in 1 John 2:15. What about the change that Christ brings into your life, (2 Corinthians 5:15 – 21)? You can say you’ve been saved and pretend all you want too, but if there was no change in your life, then you by all accounts were not saved. That’s what the Bible teaches and I believe it.
People don’t like to hear messages on servitude, but being faithful to HIM and serving HIM is what life is all about. Truth is, if we started serving God as hard as we have served this rotten world and the sin in it, then our lives would be more dedicated to God. We need to be FAITHFUL TO HIM! HE is ALL that matters! It’s not me, you or anyone else that matters, but it is HIM. Until a child of God decides to be faithful to HIM, that child will never be satisfied in their lives, because this world offers no permanent satisfaction; it is all temporary. God’s satisfaction lasts for an eternity.
We want to quote Matthew 28:18 – 20, which tells us to ‘go ye therefore and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world,” but does our lives show these verses in our actions, and do we do it? There is a misconception that it is only the pastors, deacons, and teachers who are responsible for spreading the gospel. We need to understand that it is every child of God’s responsibility to lead people to Christ. This is our job. Jesus told the disciples and others who watched HIM ascend into heaven, “ye shall be witnesses unto me, (Acts 1:8). Talking the talk is easy to do, but walking your talk is very hard, if you aren’t faithful to HIM. So, with this thought in mind, let me ask the question again, in a different way. If everything you have in life now depended upon how you served God and were faithful to HIM, meaning you could loose it all; would you still have it now?
Unfortunately we do get involved in things that bring us away from Christ and HE suddenly gets dimmer and dimmer in our lives. He still offers grace and peace to those who return to HIM, but at one point in our lives we must really see how important it is to be faithful to HIM. It’s not a game. We have a job, and we have been paid more than enough to do it. HIS love is enough. So, would you be fired today by God because of your performance for HIM? Unfortunately most of us would be unemployed. Thank God for HIS bountiful and wonderful grace.
Finally, Paul said it best about our work for God when he said, “For we are labourers together with God: ye are God's husbandry, ye are God's building. According to the grace of God which is given unto me, as a wise masterbuilder, I have laid the foundation, and another buildeth thereon. But let every man take heed how he buildeth thereupon. For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now if any man build upon this foundation gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble; Every man's work shall be made manifest: for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire; and the fire shall try every man's work of what sort it is. If any man's work abide which he hath built thereupon, he shall receive a reward. If any man's work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss: but he himself shall be saved; yet so as by fire,” (1 Corinthians 3:9 – 15).
This should cause us to render the question, “What shall I render unto the Lord for all HIS benefits toward me?”
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