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A nasty cold day here this morning but when you have the SON in your life it is a great day! I hope this mornings devotion finds you praising the Lord. The devotion should touch most of us as we all seem to want to look to see how others are doing in their faith and judge ourselves by how they are doing...as we shall see this is not the right way! So here we go!
LUKEWARM PEOPLE gauge their morality or "goodness" by comparing themselves to the secular world. They feel satisfied that while they aren't as hard-core for Jesus as so-and-so, they are nowhere as horrible as the guy down the street.
"The Pharisee stood up and prayed about himself: 'God, I thank you that I am not like other men---robbers, evildoers, adulterers----or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.'" "And the tax collector, standing afar off, would not so much as raise his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, 'God, be merciful to me a sinner!' "I tell you this man went down to his house justified rather than the other; for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted."
Early in my walk with the Lord I was bad about judging myself to others who either were or claimed to be of the faith. As I grew in my own faith and studied and read my Bible I found out looking to others to judge myself is the WRONG way to go about my walk. There is only ONE who we should be looking to to judge ourselves and that Is Jesus. I am not going to tell you anything new this morning but guess what??? He is Perfect...so when we judge ourselves to Him we come up drastically short. Following Jesus takes effort. The Bible tells us our righteousness is like filthy rags. The ONLY way to get cleaned up is through Jesus who cleansed us with His blood on the cross. Thank you Jesus!!!! So this morning I want you to look to Jesus and judge yourself. How are you doing? I can almost hear what you are thinking...."Well there is no way I can match up to Jesus." That's right you can't but the good news is through the shed blood of Jesus you are made perfect! Praise the Lord!!! One other thought before I close. Be careful about judging sin by what our human minds want us to do. We put value on different sin such as adultery is way worse then telling a lie. Well not in our Holy God's eyes cause to him sin is sin...no value points!! That is hard for us to comprehend I know but it is true!! So remember judge yourself to Christ not your neighbor!!
God bless!!! Tom
LUKEWARM PEOPLE gauge their morality or "goodness" by comparing themselves to the secular world. They feel satisfied that while they aren't as hard-core for Jesus as so-and-so, they are nowhere as horrible as the guy down the street.
"The Pharisee stood up and prayed about himself: 'God, I thank you that I am not like other men---robbers, evildoers, adulterers----or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.'" "And the tax collector, standing afar off, would not so much as raise his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, 'God, be merciful to me a sinner!' "I tell you this man went down to his house justified rather than the other; for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted."
Early in my walk with the Lord I was bad about judging myself to others who either were or claimed to be of the faith. As I grew in my own faith and studied and read my Bible I found out looking to others to judge myself is the WRONG way to go about my walk. There is only ONE who we should be looking to to judge ourselves and that Is Jesus. I am not going to tell you anything new this morning but guess what??? He is Perfect...so when we judge ourselves to Him we come up drastically short. Following Jesus takes effort. The Bible tells us our righteousness is like filthy rags. The ONLY way to get cleaned up is through Jesus who cleansed us with His blood on the cross. Thank you Jesus!!!! So this morning I want you to look to Jesus and judge yourself. How are you doing? I can almost hear what you are thinking...."Well there is no way I can match up to Jesus." That's right you can't but the good news is through the shed blood of Jesus you are made perfect! Praise the Lord!!! One other thought before I close. Be careful about judging sin by what our human minds want us to do. We put value on different sin such as adultery is way worse then telling a lie. Well not in our Holy God's eyes cause to him sin is sin...no value points!! That is hard for us to comprehend I know but it is true!! So remember judge yourself to Christ not your neighbor!!
God bless!!! Tom
Good Wednesday Morning!!! Thank you Jesus for another day. Today's lesson gives me a swift kick in the rear end because I know I can do way more witnessing than I do. I could throw out all kind of excuses but guess what??? None of them are good enough. So here we go!
LUKEWARM PEOPLE rarely share their faith with their neighbors, coworkers, or friends. They do not want to be rejected, nor do they want to make people uncomfortable by talking about private issues like religion.
" Whoever acknowledges Me before men, I will also acknowledge him before my Father in heaven. But whoever disowns me before men, I will disown him before my Father in heaven." Matt. 10:32-33
Folks this is some very serious business. Our Christian voices are being silenced very quickly and much of it is our own doing by not being obedient to our Lord's command to tell the good news of the gospel. Have you ever noticed how easy we strike up conversations about the weather, sports, news, cooking and the list can go on and on. But for some reason we don't talk about the most important issue in our lives....Jesus Christ. If nothing else today will get you think on this.....How many people will die and go to hell because I never took the opportunity to share Jesus Christ with them? Wow I had to stop and just think about that for a moment. Every single day God brings somebody through our lives to share our faith are we taking advantage of the opportunity? The devil has made us feel like we need to keep quiet about our faith....I have never found anything in scripture that says that all I have found is Where it says " Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit."
So what are we waiting for lets get busy!
In the Love of our Lord...Tom
LUKEWARM PEOPLE rarely share their faith with their neighbors, coworkers, or friends. They do not want to be rejected, nor do they want to make people uncomfortable by talking about private issues like religion.
" Whoever acknowledges Me before men, I will also acknowledge him before my Father in heaven. But whoever disowns me before men, I will disown him before my Father in heaven." Matt. 10:32-33
Folks this is some very serious business. Our Christian voices are being silenced very quickly and much of it is our own doing by not being obedient to our Lord's command to tell the good news of the gospel. Have you ever noticed how easy we strike up conversations about the weather, sports, news, cooking and the list can go on and on. But for some reason we don't talk about the most important issue in our lives....Jesus Christ. If nothing else today will get you think on this.....How many people will die and go to hell because I never took the opportunity to share Jesus Christ with them? Wow I had to stop and just think about that for a moment. Every single day God brings somebody through our lives to share our faith are we taking advantage of the opportunity? The devil has made us feel like we need to keep quiet about our faith....I have never found anything in scripture that says that all I have found is Where it says " Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit."
So what are we waiting for lets get busy!
In the Love of our Lord...Tom
Good morning everyone! Another great day to serve God. That is what today's devotion is about. Christians are to be people of action not waiting. When God speaks we need to move. So lets look at today's thought.
LUKEWARM PEOPLE are moved by stories about people who do radical things for Christ, yet they do not act. They assume such action is for "extreme" Christians, not average ones. Lukewarm people call "radical" what Jesus expected of all his followers.
" Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says." James 1:22
"Anyone, then, who knows the good he ought to do and doesn't do it, sins." James 4:17
"What do you think? There was a man who had two sons. He went to the first and said, Son, go and work today in the vineyard. I will not he answered, but later he changed his mind and went. Then the father went to the other son and said the same thing. He answered I will sir, but he did not go. Which of the two did what his father wanted? The first they answered." Matt. 21:28-31
This is the first thought that comes to my mind.....why are folks not coming to Jesus today???? Because we who call ourselves "Christians" are not serving Christ and others. If you have accepted Christ as Lord and Savior we are called to serving Him and others through love. I am amazed at how the church today is so lazy or maybe I should say selfish. It is hard to determine if we don't serve because of laziness or if we just don't want to give up our OWN time. I hope and pray people will say that Tom Jehnzen is a Jesus freak or he is a radical because the bible tells us to serve Jesus with all we have. Oh brothers and sisters I could preach on this all day. I believe our walk with God is tied hand in hand with our service to Him. He bought us with a price and we are to serve Him with EVERYTHING we got!
So this is the question for all of us..Are you giving God all you have and serving him or are we serving our selves!
There is a song by Matthew West you can find on Godtube called " The Motions". This has become a favorite of mine and talks of this issue...check it out!
http://www.tangle.com/view_video.php?viewkey=679d46a2f43beaf5ae02
God bless my friends!
Tom
LUKEWARM PEOPLE are moved by stories about people who do radical things for Christ, yet they do not act. They assume such action is for "extreme" Christians, not average ones. Lukewarm people call "radical" what Jesus expected of all his followers.
" Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says." James 1:22
"Anyone, then, who knows the good he ought to do and doesn't do it, sins." James 4:17
"What do you think? There was a man who had two sons. He went to the first and said, Son, go and work today in the vineyard. I will not he answered, but later he changed his mind and went. Then the father went to the other son and said the same thing. He answered I will sir, but he did not go. Which of the two did what his father wanted? The first they answered." Matt. 21:28-31
This is the first thought that comes to my mind.....why are folks not coming to Jesus today???? Because we who call ourselves "Christians" are not serving Christ and others. If you have accepted Christ as Lord and Savior we are called to serving Him and others through love. I am amazed at how the church today is so lazy or maybe I should say selfish. It is hard to determine if we don't serve because of laziness or if we just don't want to give up our OWN time. I hope and pray people will say that Tom Jehnzen is a Jesus freak or he is a radical because the bible tells us to serve Jesus with all we have. Oh brothers and sisters I could preach on this all day. I believe our walk with God is tied hand in hand with our service to Him. He bought us with a price and we are to serve Him with EVERYTHING we got!
So this is the question for all of us..Are you giving God all you have and serving him or are we serving our selves!
There is a song by Matthew West you can find on Godtube called " The Motions". This has become a favorite of mine and talks of this issue...check it out!
http://www.tangle.com/view
God bless my friends!
Tom
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