Wonderful Truths In The Bible You Should Live By As Christians

1. God sends the pastor to
the church.  
Churches survey their congregation to find the kind of
pastor everyone wants in the next guy. People lobby for a candidate they like
and rally against one they don’t. And they vote on the recommendation of their
committee. And after he arrives, when some turn against him, they send him on
his way.

Do we really believe God sends pastors to churches? They are
God’s undershepherds (see 1 Peter 5:1-4) and appointed by the Holy Spirit as
overseers of the church (Acts 20:28).

2. God hears our prayers, cares
for our needs, and answers our prayers. 
In the typical congregation,
what percentage of the people are serious about their prayer life?

If we
believed that God hears, cares, and answers, we would be praying over every
detail of our lives. “Pray without ceasing” (1 Thessalonians 5:17) would define
our very existence.

3. It is more blessed to give than to
receive. 
God wants His people to be givers, generous in every area of
life. As a member of the church, He wants us to be sacrificial givers. (See 1
Corinthians 8:1ff).

Think how hard it is to get God’s people to turn
loose of the almighty dollar. I know pastors who no longer preach on giving
because they cannot take the criticism. (Acts 20:35, Luke 6:38, and Matthew
6:19-20)

4. We will stand before the Lord and give account of all we
have done. 
If we believed that, imagine how differently we would live. A
lot of church leaders would deal with their pastors a lot more carefully than
they do now. The tyrants who rule their churches clearly do not know, believe,
or care that they will be brought into judgement for their actions. (See Matthew
12:36, Romans 14:12 and 1 Peter 4:5.)

5. God’s people are to obey
their leaders. 
The very idea, I can hear some saying. Even if they know
Hebrews 13:17, they conveniently ignore it. They do so to their own
detriment.

The fact is our members obey their leaders so long as they
agree with them. But let the leader ask of them something they don’t want to do,
and they bail out.

6. Pastors will give account to the Lord for their
members. 
That’s Hebrews 13:17 also. If pastors genuinely believed they
would have be called to account for every member, they would do a lot of things
differently. They would work at knowing each person, would be monitoring the
spiritual development of each member, and planning ways to grow disciples and
put them to work. They would develop accountability methodologies, mentoring
programs, and such. And I guarantee you, most would be hoping for smaller
congregations.

7. Whoever would be great, let him be the
servant. 
Jesus said a ton of things about service, including “I am among
you as One who serves.” He said the path to greatness is through service. And He
said it’s the way of the unsaved world to want to dominate people and lord it
over them. And yet, only a tiny fraction of His people believe that. We still
want to be elected to leadership positions without having to do the hard work of
serving. And when we do elect people to serve–we call them deacons–in most
cases, they quickly grow bored serving and want to rule and start giving the
pastors headaches. (See Luke 22:24ff.)

8. Turn the other cheek. Go the
second mile. 
Jesus didn’t hesitate to lay down rules which (ahem)
real-world people scoff at. Such as turning the other cheek when someone hits
you, giving them your shirt when they steal your coat, and loving your enemies.
That’s all found in Luke 6:27ff and several other places.

That’s for the
super spiritual, the typical church member insists. And since I could never be
super spiritual, I’m going to retaliate when someone does me wrong. In so doing,
our role model becomes more Clint Eastwood (“Go ahead; make my day!”) than the
Man of Galilee (“Father, forgive them; they know not what they
do.”).

9. Rather than taking one another to court, God’s people should
endure wrong. 
It says it right there in 1 Corinthians 6:7. “But I have
my rights,” insists the church member. Clearly, the honor of Christ and the
glory of God matter far less than getting even with someone who has done us
wrong.

The point being…We
have so far to go to become Christlike, spiritual, scriptural, and
mature.

The person Christ is making us into is light years beyond the
carnal, immature, self-centered persons we are at this moment.

The first
step toward becoming what God wants us to be is acknowledging how far short we
fall. I fear we are more like the Pharisee of Luke 18:9-14 whose prayer was
thanking the Lord for all the achievements he had accomplished, when we should
pray like the publican who said, “God, be merciful to me the
sinner.”

Start there. Lord, your ways are not mine, and I say that to my
shame. As the heavens are higher than the earth, your ways are beyond mine.
(Isaiah 55).

And then, “Help me, Lord. Show me. Search me and try me.”
(Psalm 139).

[written by Joe McKeever]