BIBLE MESSAGES

The Christian Life

“For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God” [Col. 3:3]

  That statement says we are letting the Lord carry our burdens and manage our affairs. I read the following statement in a work called “Secrets of A Happy Life”:
 “Most Christians are like a man who was walking along the road, bending under a heavy load when a man in a wagon overtook him. The driver kindly offered him a ride which he accepted with joy. When he was seated he continued to keep the load on his shoulders. The man asked him, ‘why do you not lay the load down?’ The man replied, ‘O, I feel it is too much to ask you to carry me and load. I could not tink of letting you carry my burden too’”
 That is like many Christians who give themselves into the care and keeping of the Lord and continue to bend under their burdens. Someone has said the greatest burden any of us have to carry is self. Jesus said, “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross and follow me” [Matt. 16:24]. We need to establish in our mind the meaning of what Jesus said. “Does not the potter have power over the clay that from the same lump to make one vessel of honor and another of dishonor?” {Rom. 9:21]. He can do that if we deny self and yield to His commands. We need to let our view of giving our life to Christ be done with a full understanding of all the fact of life. Jesus said, “But see ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all of these things shall be added to you” [Matt. 6:33]. This dies not forbid us being industrious. Several of Jesus’ parables are from scenes of prosperity. Paul wrote, “For even when we were with you, we commanded you this: if anyone will not work neither shall he eat” [2 Thess. 3:10]. Let each of us ask our self this question, ‘do we use our earnings to keep up with the world, or to serve the Lord?’ I am not concerned about our contribution. The question is, ‘will I be ready to stand before God at the judgment?’ I wonder if the reason we do not look forward to dying is we have some doubt about how fully we have given our self to the Lord!

  This illustration is taken from a tract titled “Hannah’s Faith”:

 This is the story of a poor woman who had been carried triumphantly through a life of unusual sorrow. She was giving her life story to a visitor one day and as she finished, the visitor asked her, ‘O Hannah, I do not see how you could bear so much sorrow’. To this Hannah replied, ‘I did not carry it, the Lord did it for me’. The visitor replied that this was the proper way to do it. ‘Yes’, Hannah replied, ‘but you must do more than that; we must leave it there. Most people take their burden to the Lord, and then they take it back home with them and are just as unhappy when they leave the Lord as they were when approaching Him. But I take mine to Him and leave it with Him and go home, with it off my mind. If it begins to come back, I take it right back to the Lord. I repeat this until it does not come back’”.
There is a lesson in this for us. We must do what we can to remove the cause and then leave it to the Lord. Someone gave me this advice: “Do not worry; worry will take the strength you need to remove the cause”!

  This next I read and think it worth repeating. A lady, who had a small boy, was telling a friend how hard it was to say to the Lord, “Thy will be done”. To this the other lady replied, “Suppose little Charley should come running to you tomorrow and say, ‘mother, I have made up my mind to let you have your way with me from this day forward. I am going to always obey you, and I want you to whatever you think best for me. I know you love me and I am going to trust myself to your love”. How would you feel toward him? Would you say to yourself, “now I have my chance to make his life miserable. I will take away his pleasures, and fill his life with all the miserable things I can find. I will compel him to do the most difficult things I can find for him to do”. The mother interrupted her by saying, “No! No! That is not right. You know that I would hug and kiss him and love him with all my heart”. The lady answered her with this question, “Are you more tender loving and caring that God”?
 
  The most difficult lesson for us to learn when we become Christians is the difference in serving God and self. Whom do we put first? Christ or self???

Written by: Clifford Sims