1 Corinthians 3:11. For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ.
Saturday, oh lazy Saturday! How I do LOVE thee! But I won’t count the ways for there are way too many. (smile) Yeh friends, for many of us, Saturday is the day we can do exactly as we please; laze around on the couch, watch the tube, take our time to do whatever, no rush on anything. But for some others it’s just another busy day in the life.
And for me, I have to get my head around the quotes that our friend Anselm sent us the past week and try to make some sense of them in terms of our Christian life. And let me tell you, that’s not always easy, but the Good Lord, our Creator and Director, always lends a helping hand. Oh friends, His amazing faithfulness is unfathomable! So let’s ask Him now to lead and guide me as I wend my way through this week’s quotes from Anselm. (smile)
And the first one is truly interesting. ‘Live the Life of Your Dreams: Be brave enough to live the life of your dreams according to your vision and purpose instead of the expectations and opinions of others.’ Now that is good advice, but only up to a certain point. One caveat is necessary there. We should not live our lives according to the expectations of others, meaning human folks, but we should live our lives and dreams according to the will of God! And you ask why?
Simply because it’s God who put those dreams and desires in our hearts, in the first place. And secondly, only when we live in the will and way of the Lord can our dreams and efforts meet with true and lasting success. Now those last two words are the most important ones – lasting success. If you live according to anybody else’s will, you might achieve what the world terms success, but it will never last. You’ll always be worried and concerned about it, trying to safeguard it, and you won’t have the peace you need to truly enjoy your achievements.
Why do you think Jesus told the parable of the two foundation eh, where one man builds his house on the sand and the other on the rock eh? (Matt.7:24-27) Because only the one built on the Rock, Him and his truth, His way of life, is sustainable! Any other is like the house built by the first two pigs in the story of the three pigs and the wolf. The wolf huffed and puffed and blew down the first two houses made of straw and sticks, but could not blow down that made of bricks.
And the moral of the story is that your materials and foundation must be of the highest quality in erecting anything. And you can never get better materials or a more solid foundation than that found in Jesus. Bruh Paul said it in spades: ‘For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ.’ (1 Cor. 3:11) Please friends, let’s keep that thought uppermost in our minds as we build our lives and dreams nuh. Wow! That was long! (smile) But I believe the Lord was trying to drive home a most salient point; that without Him, His Leadership and Guidance, our plans are not worth very much and are liable to be brought to naught by the smallest storm.
And that brings us to this next quote which falls into somewhat of the same vein. ‘Don’t be pushed around by the fears in your mind. Be led by the dreams in your heart.’ And that’s ever so true. We must not allow our fears to drive the engines of our lives, but rather the dreams and plans that the Lord has placed in our hearts. For as Bruh Paul so plainly proclaimed to Timothy: ‘For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of LOVE, and of a sound mind (self-control).’ (2 Tim. 1:7)
That means that although fear will always be present in our lives, once we also have the Spirit of Christ living in us, we will always be able to master fear. Glory be mih brethren! Isn’t it wonderful to know that we don’t have to let fear run and ruin our lives? It surely is. But then again, we have to use the power of the Holy Spirit dwelling in us to deactivate the fear that naturally comes a calling. As Sister Joyce (Joyce Meyer) likes to say, we must do it afraid. For courage isn’t the absence of fear, but the ability to come up over fear.
And per the desires of your heart, Bruh David clearly said it in Psalm 37. ‘Delight thyself also in the Lord; and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart.’ (Ps. 37:4) And if anybody should know about that, surely it’s Bruh David who led a life strongly dedicated to the Lord. He was not perfect, but the Lord saw His heart was right, and He will do the same for us, if our hearts are right.
That brings us to this pen-ultimate quote. ‘Take responsibility for your own happiness, never put it in other people’s hands.’ And that’s gospel truth friends! Happiness is OUR responsibility, not anybody else’s! Just on the purely practical level, we can’t place our happiness in any other human being’s hands because they are fallible and untrustworthy. They won’t always do what’s in our best interest but what’s in theirs. As Jeremiah so rightly said: ‘The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked (incurably sick): who can know it?’ (Jer. 17:9)
Oh friends, nobody but the Lord can know the true intents and motives of any human heart. That’s why it’s so important to seek our own happiness, not selfishly, but with the Lord as our number ONE guide and not humans. And Psalm 146 tells us quite plainly: ‘Put not your trust in princes, nor in the son of man (a human being), in whom there is no help (salvation). His breath goeth forth (spirit departs, body dies), he returneth to his earth; in that very day his thoughts perish. Happy is he that hath the God of Jacob for his help, whose hope is the Lord his God: Which made heaven, and earth, the sea, and all that therein is: which keepeth truth for ever:’ (Ps. 146:3-6)
It couldn’t get any better than that my fellow saints in Christ! And the last quote says: ‘Instead of worrying about what you cannot control, shift your energy to what you can create.’ Now that makes a whole lot of sense, especially in these troubling and worrying pandemic times. For if you can’t control it, why worry about it? For worrying gets you nowhere. And another of sister Joyce’s favourite sayings is that worry is like sitting in a rocking chair, you can sit and rock all day, but you won’t move, you’ll still be in the same spot at the end of the day.
And if you don’t believe her, then listen to Jesus. ‘Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for (do not worry about) your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat (food), and the body more than raiment (clothes)?’ (Matt. 6:25) It surely is. And then Jesus goes on to point out how the birds and the rest of nature survive without worrying, because their heavenly Father takes care of them.
And hear this most important question He asks His listeners. ‘Which of you by taking thought (worrying) can add one cubit unto his stature (height)?’ (Matt. 6:27) And the obvious answer is NONE of us! So why worry then over something we can’t control? Because we’re scared and faithless.
And what’s the solution to it all? As usual Jesus gives it in plain and simple language. ‘But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.’ (Matt. 6:33) That’s the answer to EVERYTHING in this life people: put God FIRST! Much LOVE!
…God will never cede His divine power to anyone or anything…He will remain El Numero Uno forever…you can count on that…
SCRIP-BITS 