For His Glory!

Yesterday morning Pastor Lewis continued our study on the book of John and we discussed the life of John the Baptist. John does get plenty of credit now as we look back on his life and the great job that he was given, but I never really thought of the strength of his character until yesterday morning.

John's purpose in life was as a forerunner of Jesus, sounds pretty cool right? But what this meant was that he preached and taught about the One to come and was able to lead a successful ministry for a time. But then once Jesus came along, he had to take all that he had accomplished in his whole life in the ministry and hand it over to Him. Even John's disciples couldn't understand it at first and they got jealous and confused about why Jesus was coming in and taking over the attention and place that John had held for so long. But this was the purpose of John's life, to bring the glory ultimately to Christ. He was able to accept this job and so humbly and willingly turn over everything to Jesus because of several things Ken shared with us. When you take these things and turn them into application for the Christian life today, this is what it may look like.

EVERYTHING that we own and have is from the Lord, he is the reason that we are alive, he is the reason we have a roof over our heads, peace when we get into bed at night, friends and family that we can enjoy. God is sovereign, everything of eternal significance is controlled by him. We are mere stewards of the money, people and time that he has given us to be used towards our purpose of glorifying him. If we truly believe that God is sovereign then we will realize that anything less than complete and utter devotion to him is not acceptable. Anything other than God that we try to place within the mix is an idol. Boyfriends, girlfriends, school, attention, work, accomplishments, etc. If we truly believe God is sovereign not only will we realize he is everything we need but we will desire him more than anything else in the world. We will serve the Lord in the place that he has called us to, whether it seem big or small and do so humbly, with the joy that only comes from living to please him. We will want to do whatever it takes so that every bit of glory goes to the Lord and him alone.

If only we could live like that. Every moment of every day. So enthralled and in love with our Savior that we never let anything else get in the way of pleasing him and giving him all the glory. Let it be our prayer that he is first and foremost and that we spend each day with him on our hearts and minds, sharing him with those around us, and growing deeper in love with him.

Pastor Lewis' sermon dissected the life of this man of God and extracted a plethora of wisdom and practical application from it. It also gave me a whole new perspective on the incredible life of John the Baptist. Now let's live it!