Will you live by decision or by default?
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how each of us have a responsibility to be good stewards of what God has entrusted to us and that just like in the parable of the talents, we can fully expect Him to want the very best return on His investment in us when He returns. Our time, our talents, our energy, our finance…they’re all gifts that we have been given with which to produce something of eternal value and significance.
Living as God’s very best version of ourselves
I’m a great believer in asking ourselves the hard questions and although sometimes the answers are not what we’d like them to be, the challenge to live as God’s very best version of ourselves is one that should motivate and inspire us every day to be more, to dig deeper, to reach higher. Not from a place of striving or working for love and acceptance, but from a place of knowing that we ARE loved, accepted and cherished and wanting our lives to be an offering of thanks back to God for His love and His blessing and His lavish heart towards us. I’m a great believer in asking ourselves the hard questions and although sometimes the answers are not what we’d like them to be, the challenge to live as God’s very best version of ourselves is one that should motivate and inspire us every day to be more, to dig deeper, to reach higher. Not from a place of striving or working for love and acceptance, but from a place of knowing that we ARE loved, accepted and cherished and wanting our lives to be an offering of thanks back to God for His love and His blessing and His lavish heart towards us.
Called to an abundant life
Whenever I need to be challenged or feel the slightest hint of complacency setting in, I can always count on The Message bible to wake me from my slumber and into God-inspired thought and action. So….as I’ve spent some time reading and meditating on the verses in James 2:14–26 from the Message translation, I’m reminded that the question of what we’re doing with what we’ve been given is one we should be asking ourselves every day, in a way that provokes us to want to live the full and abundant life Jesus came to give us. It’s a bit of a wake up call…
James 2:14–26 (MSG) – ‘Faith in Action’
14–17 Dear friends, do you think you’ll get anywhere in this if you learn all the right words but never do anything? Does merely talking about faith indicate that a person really has it? For instance, you come upon an old friend dressed in rags and half-starved and say, “Good morning, friend! Be clothed in Christ! Be filled with the Holy Spirit!” and walk off without providing so much as a coat or a cup of soup – where does that get you? Isn’t it obvious that God-talk without God-acts is outrageous nonsense?
18 I can already hear one of you agreeing by saying, “Sounds good. You take care of the faith department, I’ll handle the works department.”
Not so fast. You can no more show me your works apart from your faith than I can show you my faith apart from my works. Faith and works, works and faith, fit together hand in glove.
19–20 Do I hear you professing to believe in the one and only God, but then observe you complacently sitting back as if you had done something wonderful? That’s just great. Demons do that, but what good does it do them? Use your heads! Do you suppose for a minute that you can cut faith and works in two and not end up with a corpse on your hands?
21–24 Wasn’t our ancestor Abraham “made right with God by works” when he placed his son Isaac on the sacrificial altar? Isn’t it obvious that faith and works are yoked partners, that faith expresses itself in works? That the works are “works of faith”? The full meaning of “believe” in the Scripture sentence, “Abraham believed God and was set right with God,” includes his action. It’s that mesh of believing and acting that got Abraham named “God’s friend.” Is it not evident that a person is made right with God not by a barren faith but by faith fruitful in works?
25–26 The same with Rahab, the Jericho harlot. Wasn’t her action in hiding God’s spies and helping them escape – that seamless unity of believing and doing – what counted with God? The very moment you separate body and spirit, you end up with a corpse. Separate faith and works and you get the same thing: a corpse.
Decision or default? - The choice is ours!
I’m reminded again that a life of faith is a life not just of believing and talking about God, but about stepping out and acting on what He’s said. It’s where the rubber meets the road. It’s the choice between living by accident and living intentionally; Between living by decision or by default. Yes it’s true that God gives us choice and free-will, but we will never see a life of abundance if our faith is not accompanied by action.
In his book ‘Intentional Living: Choosing a Life That Matters’, John Maxwell emphasises the importance of refusing to be carried along and allowing ourselves to be dictated to by the circumstances of life…
“An unintentional life accepts everything and does nothing. An intentional life embraces only the things that will add to the mission of significance.”
John C Maxwell, Intentional Living
- Choosing a Life That Matters
Fully responsible, fully awake
As women of God, we have a choice each day about how we’re going to think and what we’re going to do. Intentional living happens only when we come to the realisation that we are fully responsible for our thoughts, our emotions and our actions, and decide to respond to that in a positive way by making deliberate daily choices about how we spend our time, our energy, our talents and our finances.
Will we just live in a reactive state in response to the external situations and circumstances occurring around us or will we decide to live fully awake to God’s purposes and plans and then choose to bring our daily actions into alignment in order to live the passionate, purposeful, faith-filled life we were meant to be living?
“The key is not to prioritise your schedule but to schedule your priorities” – Stephen Covey
Call to action
Ephesians 5:10 says “Figure out what will please Christ, and then do it.”
Wherever you are in life now and whether you feel like life so far has been purposeful or not, it’s never too late to embrace your true calling and pursue it wholeheartedly. Simply make a decision today and re-evaluate whether you’re living intentionally and deliberately…
What has God said to you?
What are you doing about it?
Are your actions and choices today, this week, this month, going to be deliberate and on purpose and in alignment with the direction God is pointing you in and His true call upon your life?
When you ask yourselves these questions, what does it make you think and how does it make you feel?
Take the FREE Company of Dreamers PASSIONATE PURPOSE QUIZ to see where you are on the journey to living in alignment with your purpose and determine the next steps to move you nearer to fulfilling your divine destiny.
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