Diligence Like An Ant

Diligence Like An Ant

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C-5ifOUkxto

There is a place of direct effort that must be applied to our faith and when we go there we find that we move to places we could never go by direct effort much in the same way that one ant with one grain of sand has no idea what is happening until the die has been cast and we are changed forever.

Proverbs 6:6-8

As believers we often can easily become discouraged at the first sign of difficulty or disappointment. Just imagine the thought that must have been going through some of the heads of the ant.

What is the blessed point of this back breaking work? This doesn’t feel terribly exciting today! What is the point of all this anyways?? I need a massage therapist for my back!

WOW, you thought your life was a daily grind, a monotonous routine and then someday, someone discovers an incredible masterpiece, a life full of richness and you realize wow, God has taken me places I never dreamed of and it is a steady diet of faithfulness.

The Christian life is both easy and difficult. It is easy in the sense of where we go in appropriating our strength, our hope and resolve. It is quite another thing to really understand what it means to go there. Character transformation does require a lot of hard work and at the same time we are completely dependent on God for His enabling grace and the power of the Holy Spirit’s inner working.

That tendency is that we think we should be proficient with spiritual power, moving with agility and endurance, wisdom and purity, able to conquer long established habits right now! However, we need to know that any move towards becoming more like Christ comes with a cost.

The cost is opening up our lives to the very personal working of the Holy Spirit and being ready for wherever that will take us. It happens every morning when we wake up and we make that first decision to either enter in to His presence or ‘have at it scattered brained’.

We need to breathe in His presence, live in His fullness and listen to His wake up calls!

Many would refer to this part of our lives as our ‘spiritual disciplines’.

I WORK OUT YOUR FAITH

Continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling

Working for your salvation, that is heresy, but working out your salvation, that is where we need to go.

With any good workout, the goal is to accelerate your heartbeat and that being said, it is not about everyone having the same workout, God was certainly creative in making each and every one of us and His designs for us are the same way.

A great workout is any activity you do by direct effort that will help you get to the place where God meets you and where you could never go by direct effort!

God-sized workouts include prayer in its various forms, meditation, silence, solitude, simplicity, service, giving, fasting and my wife Sharon has really connected with the Lord through dance in worship to Him.

A classic book that has really enriched me in this way is Richard Foster’s Celebration of Discipline.

Unfortunately these disciplines don’t just show up in your life, you have to purposefully make the decision to go there and that is what Paul is telling us when he says ‘work it out, work out your salvation, let it become more real in your life

Luke 13:24 He said to them, "Make every effort to enter through the narrow door, because many, I tell you, will try to enter and will not be able to.

Romans 14:19
Let us therefore make every effort to do what leads to peace and to mutual edification.

Ephesians 4:3
Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace.

Hebrews 4:11
Let us, therefore, make every effort to enter that rest, so that no one will fall by following their example of disobedience.

Hebrews 12:14
Make every effort to live in peace with all men and to be holy; without holiness no one will see the Lord.

2 Peter 1:5
⁵For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; ⁶and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; ⁷and to godliness, brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness, love. ⁸For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ

2 Peter 1:15
And I will make every effort to see that after my departure you will always be able to remember these things.

2 Peter 3:14
So then, dear friends, since you are looking forward to this, make every effort to be found spotless, blameless and at peace with him.

The fact is that we possess everything we need to live the joyful, abundant life, but we still have to work it out!!

Now, in the pursuit of your holy habits, something is definitely wrong if you become more arrogant, self-righteous, irritable or judgmental, it is very likely, you’re on the legalism track and you are missing the point of why you are exercising. The point of exercise is not the exercise, it is the end result. What do I look like at the end of the day???

What we want is to experience more of His divine presence and enabling, now and here!!!

II ‘GOD SIZED RESULTS AWAIT YOU!’ for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose.

This is the place where we want to go. This is the place where we discover our greatest significance, our most satisfying moments, to know that the living God is fulfilling His purposes through me!

However it takes incredible perseverance – the examples laid out before us – Heroes of faith – Hebrews 11

Stamina, endurance, tenacity, long-haul. The Christian life is best defined as a long distance run more than a sprint! Everyone has the same goal – to finish this race and we do not race against each other, but against time!

To pray well is to cultivate holy patience and perseverance. It is about our will being conformed to His, becoming more like Jesus.

2 Peter 3:8,9

God is not slow; He accomplishes His purposes right on time, but He’s not in a hurry. Look at King David, He had been anointed king, but his route to kingship took about 12 years while he hid for his life. God is definitely more interested in the shaping of our character that in our comfort.

Daniel...we looked at his life two weeks ago and we never got to the point of eating all those vegetables...his 10 day challenge turned out to speak for itself, they were 10X better when it came to wisdom compared to those with earthly wisdom....hands down, make no mistake about it, they stood head and shoulders above all the rest. When they stood up for their faith and beliefs, others recognized it.

III CHOOSE YOUR WORKOUT!

¹⁴Do everything without complaining or arguing, ¹⁵so that you may become blameless and pure, children of God without fault in a crooked and depraved generation, in which you shine like stars in the universe ¹⁶as you hold out the word of life—in order that I may boast on the day of Christ that I did not run or labor for nothing.

The fact is that temporal pleasures will always crowd out eternal ones. We are told to resist the urge to fulfill our appetite with cheap substitutes for the same reason our parents told us not to eat cookies before supper. If we are truly going to be satisfied spiritually we need to learn the patience that comes in waiting and getting hungry for God to reveal Himself and show up in our lives instead of running for ‘sin substitutes’.

Name a sin and you can always find its ‘holy’ opposite. Examples are learning to give instead of stealing, encouraging others instead of gossiping about them, sacrificial love for others instead of lust, reaching out to others in need instead of self absorption

Here’s the truth. We are all going to go through a workout, the decision is whether we want the pain to be a self destructive one or a redemptive process.

Our human nature is always calling us to be lethargic here, don’t get too radical for God, go easy on yourself and this is where we need to draw the line and say ‘no more’.

Character transformation is not easy; it requires a lot of hard work, vigilant oversight, rigorous thought, self discipline and a life marked by repentance. Gary Thomas

God is more interested in our character than our comfort

We are watching a new neighbourhood grow around us and every day something changes, one week a foundation, the next a floor is framed and before we know it, there will be town homes in the backyard of the church separated by a privacy fence.

We want to see progress, results, SO where do we begin?

PRAYER

As you pray:

Ø be encouraged and get support from the examples that have inspired us to run. First and foremost, our Savior…who has been instrumental in moving you forward. 1 Corinthians 11:1

Ø Small Groups – The essential 3 C’s of small group life are Connect – provides care; Change – the ongoing work of transformation together to become Christlike and Cultivate –serving in the community to express God’s love and compassion.

Ø Confess and get rid of those things that hold you back.

Break free from the sin that keeps tripping us up.

Focus on the goal – lay hold of the promises Christ has promised.

2 Timothy 4:6 – I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.

Hebrews 6:11- showing diligence to the end

2Corinthians 4:7 – God’s breaking process – to rely completely on Him

James 1:24 that you may be complete, lacking nothing