Am I my Brother's Keeper? --Oswald Chambers

(As usual, Oswald makes good sense today.?We have been created by God, for God, for His glory.?As the Westminster Shorter Catechism states:?“The chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever!”?Sometimes, I take my sin way too lightly, I forget that it sends out ripples across the sea of my life, impacting innocent people and perhaps even causing harm to generations yet to be born.?I forget that I am intended to be the “aroma of Christ” to everyone I meet and that I should seek to never be offensive even if the truth of God I share offends some.?To them, the Word is the smell of rotting flesh, but I shouldn’t be.?My role, your role, too, if you are Christ follower is to represent Christ well, to re present Him to everyone around us, to love them like He loves us, whether they are lovable or not.?We are His hand and His feet, literally Christ to this world.?I look in the mirror and wonder how I am doing with that.?Is there too much me and too little Him.?As John the Baptist stated, we need to become less and He needs to become more!?On a good note, when you or I re-present God well, as His ambassadors, sent out with His same power and authority, others are drawn to Him through our kindness, our demeanor, our peace, our joy, our love…?Sheldon Vanauken stated it well: “The best argument for Christianity is Christians: their joy, their certainty, their completeness. But the strongest argument against Christianity is also Christians--when they are sombre and joyless, when they are self-righteous and smug in complacent consecration, when they are narrow and repressive, then Christianity dies a thousand deaths.”?This day, I choose to let my light shine, rather, His light from within me shine, so that He gets the honor, the glory and the praise.?After all, my life it not my own, it was purchased by His own blood!?Read on for Oswald’s thoughts…MH)

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"Am I My Brother's Keeper?'

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None of us lives to himself… Romans 14:7

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Has it ever dawned on you that you are responsible spiritually to God for other people? For instance, if I allow any turning away from God in my private life, everyone around me suffers. We “sit together in the heavenly places…” (Ephesians 2:6). “If one member suffers, all the members suffer with it…” (1 Corinthians 12:26). If you allow physical selfishness, mental carelessness, moral insensitivity, or spiritual weakness, everyone in contact with you will suffer. But you ask, “Who is sufficient to be able to live up to such a lofty standard?” “Our sufficiency is from God…” and God alone (2 Corinthians 3:5).

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“You shall be witnesses to Me…” (Acts 1:8). How many of us are willing to spend every bit of our nervous, mental, moral, and spiritual energy for Jesus Christ? That is what God means when He uses the word witness . But it takes time, so be patient with yourself. Why has God left us on the earth? Is it simply to be saved and sanctified? No, it is to be at work in service to Him. Am I willing to be broken bread and poured‘out wine for Him? Am I willing to be of no value to this age or this life except for one purpose and one alone— to be used to disciple men and women to the Lord Jesus Christ. My life of service to God is the way I say “thank you” to Him for His inexpressibly wonderful salvation. Remember, it is quite possible for God to set any of us aside if we refuse to be of service to Him— “…lest, when I have preached to others, I myself should become disqualified” (1 Corinthians 9:27).

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--Oswald Chambers