Scripture

Carefully determine what pleases the Lord.

~Ephesians 5:10, NLT

Quote

The fallen world and our limited vision can blur our destination and make our daily walk difficult.

~Charles F. Stanley

I was driving home from West Morgan last Thursday night when I hit fog. I had to slow down immediately because my vision was extremely limited. When I say slow down, I mean a crawl. My age, my failing eye sight, the darkness and the fog combined made driving tense and emotionally draining. I couldn’t wait to get home. Thank goodness there was no one behind me because I was driving very slow. The Apostle Paul reminds us in 1 Corinthians 13 that life here on earth can get foggy. He said, Now we see things imperfectly, like puzzling reflections in a mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity.

The scriptures remind us that God has a wonderful plan for our life. By His marvelous grace, He is making us sick of our sin and transforming us to the image of Christ. We are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good for others and bring glory to Him. With all the fleshly fog, we do not see the glory within but Christ in us is our hope of glory. I have to be honest; when I look at myself in the mirror, I see more Jack than Jesus. But I do see Jack decreasing in very small increments. I am a huge fan of John the Baptist. He didn’t dress up, he spoke the truth even though it cost him his life and he never performed a miracle. The thing I admire about him most was his humility. When the Jerusalem Times interviewed him on the banks of the Jordan, they asks for his name. He refused to give them a name. He said, “I am just a voice.” Most preachers I know are glory hogs and that would have responded quickly, “It is Jack Bailey…that is B-a-i-l-e-y!” John told his followers, “I must decrease and He {Jesus} must increase.”

So this is the goal of our sanctification: Jesus becomes greater and greater while we become less and less. How does God achieve this in us? Obviously, we begin with Jesus and His atoning work but then it becomes a matter of grace and God’s ability to use sin and failure to His advantage. You have to admit; failure is humiliating. If our greatest need is humility. God uses the failure to humble us and slow us down. To navigate the Christ life, we have to stay focused on Jesus and learn not to rely on the flesh.

EXTRA

Another wonderful LORD’s day. I didn’t realize it but June said we had a good crowd at GP with 94 in the second service and we had and we had five cars and 11 in the early service. That adds up to 105 for worship and that is good for us. It is hard to believe that this is the last week in October. It has been a strange year so why should it change now. It’s October 25 and very few leaves have changed and no cotton has been picked. I don’t remember such a year ever. Have a great day and thanks for reading the BLOG.