Live It

One action is more valuable than a thousand good intentions.

I know….I didn’t even give you time to prepare for that one, I just hit you with it. But my whole blog today is a little spontaneous and a bit of a spiritual rabbit punch.

I’m sitting here reading a place in Luke where Jesus is teaching and speaking the wisdom and truth of God when all of the sudden a woman calls out and says, “Blessed is the mother who gave you birth and nursed you!” Jesus stops, pauses for a moment and says, “Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and obey it.”

What???... Maybe the most influential statement on obedience to God in all of scripture. He literally said the favor and blessing over your life is richer and more prolific by merely DOING what you read in God’s word than if you had given birth to the savior of the world.

Jesus was relentless in his teaching when it came to this issue of ACTION. He knew it was and is what separates advancement from abandonment. Let’s have a moment of truth shall we? No dream comes true by itself and the measure of a person is not in his dream but in his action.

I have never heard of anyone stumbling onto something big while sitting down. A quaint poem written by a late poet from northern Kentucky simply says, “Sitting still and wishing makes no person great, the good Lord made the fish but we must dig the bait.”

I’ve been preparing today for my message on Sunday, as I do every week. And every week people trek out to listen, but the true test of the message is not the listener walking away saying, “What an inspirational set of concepts and ideas.” The true test of the message is what Pilate declared and asked the Jews, “What shall I now do with Jesus which is called Christ?”

Some people indeed find life as well as the Christian experience empty not because there is nothing to it, but because they put nothing INTO it.

THE DEVIL DOESN’T MIND YOUR PROFESSING FAITH JUST AS LONG AS YOU DON’T PRACTICE IT. The truth is most of us are educated well beyond the level of our obedience, but it is in obedience only, where what we hope for becomes reality.

Mark twain once rightly noted, “Thunder is good but lightning does the work.” You got that right. Every time we hear truth and refuse to do it we allow a form of deception into our lives because no matter how we slice it if we agree and declare it to be true and don’t do it the cold hard fact is we really don’t believe it.

There have been hundreds if not thousands of books written about the Secret of Success but I believe people secretly don’t want to really know the secret of success because deep down they suspect that secret may be HARD WORK.

I heard one man say, “I’m not afraid of hard work, I can lay down right next to it and sleep like a baby.” While that may be humorous, refusal to work the vision means the death of the dream.

I am haunted by an image of me standing before God and seeing the lives I could have changed but didn’t simply because it required some extra effort. Nobody gets everything right every time and the great news is God knows that.

The scripture never reprimands the soul for failure after all this is what created the advent of GRACE. What the scripture addresses is never trying, never doing and never attempting.

My question for you this week is what is it you know to do but are not doing? Has God put something or maybe someone in your path or in your heart and you have not acted on it? Miracles happen ONLY when we move.

I told God seventeen years ago if he opened doors and would help me I would go anywhere, anytime and do anything for Him, that’s why next week I’ll be blogging from Prague in the Czech Republic while I’m there preaching and teaching to 150 Pastors from Budapest, Hungary and Poland.

God has a dream for you, friend. Don’t be afraid to say yes and run hard after Him, trust me when I tell you you’ll be glad you did.

As always take 20 seconds and tell me and the others who read this weekly blog what you think.

Thanks for participating and I’ll see you next week from Europe.

All for Christ,
J. Mark