1 Corinthians 16:13-14
Keep your eyes open, hold tight to your convictions, give it all you’ve got, be resolute, and love without stopping.
Scripture quotations from The Message. © 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002 by Eugene Peterson. Used by permission of NavPress, Colorado Springs, CO. All rights reserved.
I’m trying very hard to keep the same “rules” at our house that Timothy and Zola (and someday, their baby brother Nathan) have at home. So even though I hung my least fragile Christmas ornaments on the lower 3 feet of my tree, I reminded the children today to… “Remember, we look, but we don’t touch.” I find myself thinking… “It wouldn’t really hurt anything if they touched those ornaments.” But I know we must be consistent, so we don’t allow this.
Toddlers and three-year-olds (and sometimes older “children”) do not understand why they hear the word “No!” so much. It’s hard to explain to them that our reasons are sound. Often, they try to pull the wool over our eyes… and sometimes, they succeed. They have no idea how much we love them… and that we will never stop!
My husband took a picture of me today sitting under the tree with Zola… an almost exact replica of a pose I have with Zola’s mother, when she was just a few months older than Zola is now. And while I know that Timmy and Zola’s mother did not understand all of our rules (I still remember a Christmas when she insisted she had to open her gifts on December 23rd because “I just can’t stand to wait any longer!)… we stuck by them. Still, we’ve never stopped loving her… and we never will.
As faith-filled Christians, God wants us to follow the Apostle Paul’s advice to the Corinthians and stay awake and alert to those who would try to deceive us… to stand up for our convictions and “stick to our guns”… to always give all we have as His disciples… and to never stop loving – Him and one another. That’s a tall order… but then, so is being a Christian!
I know that God has modeled all of this in my life… and in yours, as well. We can’t fool God…even though many of us have tried – or will someday. He is always “awake and alert!” God has stuck to His word and upheld His promises… given EVERYTHING (including His Only Son)…loved us unconditionally…and never faltered. That’s “amazing grace” in action! This should give us tremendous hope and courage. Here is our perfect example of how to live – and serve – well. Are you modeling these traits in your own life? Isn’t it time you did?
©2012 Debbie Robus
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