Tag: living testimonies

Christ Revealed Through Daily Life

1 Corinthians 9:22
To the weak I became weak, that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all people, that by all means I might save some.

Paul shared with the Corinthians his passion to carry out the good work of delivering the message of salvation to all men. He emphasized that this required him to be a servant to all men, regardless of their stature or their spiritual state. In doing so, he was also teaching them that carrying the gospel to all men was their calling also.

God calls people to all walks of life to insure that His gospel message is spread to the world. He calls some to full time ministry, but most are not. Most of us are called to traditional occupations and lifestyles where the Lord wants us to let Christ be revealed by the way we live and by the way we treat others.

God wishes for our messages of love, compassion and forgiveness to be the same whether we are in a boardroom or in a maintenance shop, whether we are in a health club or in a hospital, whether we are at a church function or in the visiting room of a prison. He wants our messaging system to be on non-stop.

Let us surrender our lives to Our Savior. Let us allow the gentle urgings of the Holy Spirit to draw spiritual production from us within the structure of our natural lives. Let us strive to have our living testimonies become pathways to salvation for others.

Prayer
Heavenly Father, we thank You for the perfect love, compassion and forgiveness that You pour out onto each of us. We praise the name of Jesus who made it possible for us to become vessels of Your grace. We pray that the Holy Spirit will enlighten us and invigorate us to carry the salvation message with us as we walk through our daily lives. May we bear fruit for Your kingdom wherever our paths on earth lead us. We ask all these things in the name of the Tower of Salvation, Jesus Christ.

Eloquent Speech is not What Draws Them to Christ

2 Timothy 4:2
Preach the word of God. Be prepared, whether the time is favorable or not. Patiently correct, rebuke, and encourage your people with good teaching.

We are commanded to preach the Word of God. We are commanded to be prepared to preach the Word. Are we ready?

Jesus Christ, the Living Word, came to earth to teach about His Father in heaven and to reveal the salvation plan. A large portion of His message was presented through the way that He lived and loved among the people. He used His miracles to exhibit His love and to gain attention for His message – especially for those that would not listen to His message otherwise.

So it is with us. Because most of the world now has hardened hearts for the spoken Word, we must draw them to the Word by the way that we live our lives. Our living testimony of the miracle that occurred in our lives through Jesus Christ must be the message that those around us see day in and day out. Once they see the miraculous way that our lives have changed and they see the joy that we have regardless of circumstances, the comfort we have regardless of our trials and the love that we share through good times and bad, they will be drawn to the fount that sustains us. The way we live will say more and teach more than we could convey with eloquent speech. To preach the Word is more about how we live than how we orate.

Let us live in the fullness and presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives. Let the world be drawn to Our Savior by our living testimonies.

Prayer
Heavenly Father, we thank You for the living presence of Your Son in our lives. We bless the name of Jesus who dwells within us so that we may be vessels of His perfect love. We pray that we may become broken vessels, surrendered to Our Savior, so that the world may be drawn to Him by the Light that lives within us and shines forth from us. Once those around us have been drawn to us by the lives in Christ that we are living, we pray that You give us the strength and the boldness to proclaim the gospel. We ask that You open the ears of those around us and prepare their hearts to receive their Savior. We ask all these things in the mighty name of the One who gives grace to the humble, Jesus Christ.

Praising God Out of Love and Delight

Psalm 145:21
My mouth will speak the praise of the LORD, and let all flesh bless his holy name forever and ever.

We are stirred up in our hearts to praise God. We praise Him because of His power and His glory. We praise Him for His holiness and His love expressed through the redemptive work of His Son, Jesus.

Our Lord, Jesus, is the fullness of the love and forgiveness that we have been so graciously provided by Our Father in Heaven. Let our every breath be filled for praise for the Father and the Son. May our lives be living testimonies of the Son of God who has come to dwell within us.

Let us praise God out of the faith that He has built in us through His Holy Spirit. Let us praise God with the love and delight that He has placed in our hearts. Let us praise God as we are comforted by His goodness, His grace and His holiness. Let us praise God with the joy of the expectation of life in His eternal kingdom. Let us praise God with the unshakeable confidence that the victory is ours through God’s greatest gift to us, His Son, Jesus. Let us bless the name of His Son forever. Let us praise God for He is worthy.

Prayer
Heavenly Father, we exalt Your name above all others for You are worthy. We pray Father that You open our eyes so that we may see Your glory in the tiny things in life as well as the large things. We lift our voices up in high praise for Your precious Lamb, Jesus. We bless His name and proclaim His holiness and His righteousness. We give thanks for His presence in our lives. May our every breath praise Him as we come know just how dear He is to us. We ask all these things in the name of the One whose steadfast love never ceases, Jesus Christ.

Living Testimonies to New Life

Luke 23:31
For if they do these things when the wood is green, what will happen when it is dry?

As the women were weeping for the suffering of Jesus as He was on His way to be crucified, He prophesied the terrible judgement that awaits those that do not accept the new life that He offers them. He emphasized the message of His prophecy by using Himself as the standard against which judgement will be made.

Jesus compared Himself to a green tree, full of life, flourishing in every aspect of its existence. Such a tree is not proper to be cut down before its time, nor is it fit to be fuel for the fire. The metaphor was designed to express the righteousness and innocence of Jesus Christ.

On the other hand, Jesus was comparing the sinner to dry, dead wood. Such wood is rotten and deserving to be fuel for the fire. The metaphor was designed to express the depravity and worthlessness of the sinner.

If He, who is pure and perfect in every measure and is the essence of life itself, had to suffer beyond the human capacity for pain and then die for our sins, why then should we, the driest of woods, not expect to die for our sins? We should expect death for the wages of sins is death. We can only escape the punishment for our sins and claim our inheritance as children of God by accepting the offer of eternal life through Our Savior.

Let us become vessels of the life of Christ within us. Let us look deep inside and make sure that we are not dry wood, bearing no fruit, showing no sign of allowing the life of Christ within us to be released to the world around us. Let us submit and surrender to the abundant life that dwells within us. Let us then seek out those around us who are living in the driest places. Let us present them with the Living Water that has taken us out of our dry places so that they might also experience life in Jesus Christ.

Prayer
Heavenly Father, thank You for providing the way, the truth and the life that is found only in Your Son, Jesus. We praise the name of Jesus for all that He suffered on our behalf. We rejoice in the inheritance that awaits us. We pray that You will raise us up to be living testimonies to the new life that we have in Christ so that others may join us in our eternal places in Your kingdom. We ask all these things in the name of the life giving spirit, Jesus Christ.

Becoming Vessels of God’s Love

1 John 4:16
So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.

God is love. His love is unconditional and without end. His love for us is expressed explicitly through the sacrifice of His Son, Jesus. His love for us is reinforced daily by the counsel of the Holy Spirit in our lives.

Through His love, Almighty God gives us an unfailing hope for our future. Let us not lose sight of the truth that our hope for our future is so much more than how we feel about our future or what the world tells us about our future. Our hope rests upon a very special love gift from God. Our hope is built upon the Good News of God for the world that He loves us so much that He gave us His Son so that we may have eternal life.

Through His love, Almighty God also gives us His Holy Spirit to stand by us, to give us the strength to bear all things that come against us and the spiritual maturity to endure all the tribulations that make up life on this earth. His grace is poured out on us in this manner so that we may overcome the world.

Most importantly, Almighty God created a spot in our hearts so that we could receive His love and return it to Him. He gave us the capacity to share His love with the world around us. He gave us the Holy Spirit so that our love could be an endless spring. When we are living in accordance with the Holy Spirit within us, we are capable of extraordinary service to those around us. By returning our love to the Father through our service to those around us, we become living testimonies of His perfect love.

Let us prepare our hearts to become vessels of God’s perfect love and forgiveness. Let us show the world His love through our compassionate sharing of the love He has given us.

Prayer
Heavenly Father, we thank You for loving us unconditionally. We thank You that Your love flows to us endlessly. Prepare our hearts, Lord, so that we may become vessels of Your perfect love. Cleanse us, Lord, of anything in our hearts that would restrict the flow of Your love in our lives. May we bear much fruit for Your kingdom through the spontaneous release of Your love to the world around us. We pray, Father, that the world will be drawn to Your Son when they see Your love at work in us. We ask all these things in the name of the One who delights in our steadfast love, Jesus Christ.