Daily Thoughts about God

“Iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another”. Proverbs 27: 17

In these days, especially in large metropolitan areas, the Christian has a lot to choose from. You can attend a small neighborhood church with dozen of members or you can attend a mega church with thousands of members. You can hear great preaching and sermons that spiritually excite you in person, on line or on television. You can hear wonderful Christian music that inspires you.

But no matter where you go or what you hear, unless you are involved in a small group experience, you are not sharpening your spiritual growth. I am talking about Bible fellowship classes, small group Bible studies, prayer groups and accountability partnerships.

All of us are the product of the people we meet, the places we go and the books we read. If we hang around with dogs, we get fleas. In life, we are an associational product. It’s not easy to love a “G Rated” life in an “X Rated” world.

The best way to live a holy life is to hang around with those who do. Get involved in a Bible fellowship, a morning Bible and accountability group, or a weekly luncheon with Christian brethren.

Living a holy life is not easy, but in order to do so, we must live in fellowship with God and have the flavor of God in our life. All of that goes with the development of a healthy and godly fear in our lives. To live a holy life, I must be identified with God and with Holy living. The best way to do that is to hang around with holy people.

Since I became a Christian I don’t do what I used to and I am not who I once was. But, I am human and I can slip and slide, especially when I hang around with the wrong people, read the wrong books (TV’s shows, movies and the like) and go the wrong places. No matter how solid my faith, there are limits to the temptation I can resist.

Getting saved is something I have to do alone. It is a private and personal thing between God and me. But living the Christian life is something that is best done in a group setting. It needs to be done with others and, like putting on your clothes – it is something that needs to be done daily. Daily, I must walk with the Spirit or risk walking in the flesh.

Living the Christian life is not easy in this demoralized world, but a team approach makes any task easier. Iron does sharpen iron, as Christians sharpen one another. So, pull along others and grow together.
(a thought on life from John Grant)

John Grant is a former Florida State Senator and is a practicing attorney
You can comment on this devotional online at:
https://thoughts-about-god.com/blog/2010/08/01/jg_iron-sharpens-iron/

by Sylvia Gunter

You may be packing your bags and heading out on vacation to the beach or the mountains for one last summer get-away. As you travel and even if you are staying in your own backyard, be intentional to see, hear, smell, taste, and sense the ways that God makes himself known through creation.

Listen with your spirit to Romans 1:19-20. “For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made…”

God has plainly made himself known in creation. Be blessed with gratitude for beauty around you, for the strength it offers, for the peace it brings. Appreciate creation as never before. Be blessed to hear creation sing of your Father’s love. Be sensitive to alignment of his creation with him. Be blessed to welcome and appreciate the identity, the purpose, and the product of land. Be blessed with empathy for land that is out of alignment with God’s purposes because of man’s misuse.

Be blessed in that place in your essence that loves the sea, that can hear the heartbeat of creation as the tides ebb and flow, as the sun rises and sets, as the stars dance at night in the expanse of the dark sky, as birds swoop and dive, as fish jump, as the sun shimmers on the water, and in the smell of the air. Be blessed to watch a wild thunderstorm with flashes of lightning lighting up the sky better than a fireworks show. Be blessed to feel the wind and lift your face to the rain to let it caress your face. Be blessed to say, “Something in this electrified air calls forth deep unto deep inside me.”

Be blessed in that place in your inner being that leaps at the sight of majestic mountains, that soars in response to their peaks, that hears them breathe and sigh as the wind blows across them, that tunes in to the music the water sings as it falls over rocks in keys of music that no man can create. Bless the birds, to affirm their glory in their Creator. Celebrate their place in his creation as their birdsong praises him on your land or in your neighborhood according to his righteous intention.

Be blessed in the name of the Most High over all the earth (Psalm. 97:9).

You can comment on this devotional online at:
https://thoughts-about-god.com/blog/2010/07/28/sg_enjoy-gods-purposes/

Iron Sharpens Iron

Enjoy God’s Purposes in Creation

Daily Thoughts about God Posts

Iron Sharpens Iron

Enjoy God’s Purposes in Creation