Choosing Today

I have an irrational aversion to being reminded about things that, I sincerely believe, I haven’t forgotten. The same goes for being asked to do something that I very much wanted to do for another person without being asked. If a valuable project at work is being neglected, or a family member is running out of a favorite after dinner treat, I will sometimes take it on myself to take care of it. But as soon as I get the resolve not to wait to be asked, I get worried that before I’m under way I will be asked – and then the thoughtful gesture I’m planning to make won’t seem so thoughtful anymore. Because once you’ve been asked it’s more a matter of obligation, and you get no credit for showing initiative.

Nobody thinks this is my best feature – in all honesty it’s a kind of pride.  So when the new year came around and I was in service this Sunday with a slew of resolutions already in mind to improve my relationship with God, imagine my chagrin when we got a litany of five choices we can make to be more engaged in the Body of Christ. Some of these were in areas I had forgotten I had realized a need for improvement before. And some were areas I already wanted to change; so if the Holy Spirit wanted to lay it on our hearts today and my resolutions weren’t in the execution phase yet, then how would I get any credit for wanting to do those things already? Didn’t God know I was working on that?

To recap, the five choices in Sunday’s message we can and should make are:

1.     Choose to take responsibility for your own spiritual growth.

2.     Choose to practice contentment in all areas of your life.

3.     Choose to serve with regularity in your church.

4.     Choose to invite people, routinely, to meet Jesus through seeing Him in the lives of His people.

5.     Choose to bring your full tithe to God each week.

David in the book of Psalms reminds us that “the earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it; the world, and all who live in it,” (Psalm 24:1). That includes you and me. We have nothing the Lord didn’t give us, and we can do nothing that He doesn’t enable, or at least permit. That’s good to remember in a culture where we often find a church to attend and wait for it to do something for us. We need to refrain from a consumer mentality toward church, and instead find our own shape within the body and strive to interact within the whole. That way the focus is off ourselves and on the Lord and his people.  Matthew puts it better in saying “the greatest of you will be a servant” (Matthew 23:11), and this verse comes in a larger passage about avoiding self-aggrandizement, impressive titles and hypocrisy. This is a very practical cure for the temptation to be proud – after all, servanthood is real work, and there’s nothing wrong with being too busy for sin.

Some of these applications are very practical, and those kinds of messages are my favorite since I’m most likely to follow up on them. If I resolve to be more responsible with my financial giving, to take the initiative to invite someone to a church event, or to find an area of need where I’m gifted to serve, that’s more likely to yield fruit than just promising God that I’ll be a better witness or become more sacrificial in general. These are steps I plan to take, or at least I want to take. You and I could probably improve upon at least two of these this month, and maybe all five of them given enough time.

But apparently I still need the reminders. Don’t give me too much credit.

Written by: Chad Halcom

Edited by: Brigit Edwards