Acceptable In His Sight – In His Word reworked from 3/22/10
Let the Words of my mouth and the meditation of
my heart be acceptable in your sight O’ Lord. Psalm 19:14
What will you do to be accepted by others? What
will you say?
What
we do and say says a lot about us, but what we hide in our heart says even more
to God. We can act like all is well when we are feeling broken inside, but He
knows our hearts and He will reveal the truth to those who seek Him. Someone
was talking about this topic on Sunday, about how we need to be sure that we
are acceptable in His sight, not just for the people at work or at church but
the people at home as well.
The Lord knows our hearts; he knows that we
desire to be like Him. So why can’t we be more loving to one another?
We
need to remind ourselves that we are not playing the role of Christian, but we
are to live Christ-like, or as if we are truly "of Christ." We are,
after all, His people and we should appear as He would in every situation:
loving and kind, but not without righteous anger when appropriate. He did
turn over the tables in the temple, after all, when the money changers had
turned it into a marketplace instead of a Temple of God
21 For our sake He made Christ [virtually] to be sin Who knew no
sin, so that in and through Him we might become [[a]endued with, viewed as being in, and examples of] the
righteousness of God [what we ought to be, approved and acceptable and in right
relationship with Him, by His goodness]. 2 Corinthians 5:21 AMPC-Amplified
Version
Behold what manner of love the Father has
bestowed on us, that we should be called children of God! Therefore the world
does not know us, because it did not know Him. Beloved, now we are children of
God; and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when
He is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is. And
everyone who has this hope in Him purifies himself, just as He is pure. 1 John
3:1-3
We
need to try to focus on being like Him at all times, to focus on becoming more
like Him daily. How do we do that? Well, if I wanted to become a professional
baseball player, I would look at a professional baseball player’s history. I
would check out how he got to where he was and then I would make a game plan to
follow in his footsteps. I would train as much as he did, in the same areas he
did, doing the same workouts that he did in hopes that someday I could be seen
as good as him.
As
Christians we want to study Christ’s history, the Word of God, so that we can
learn what He is like. Then we want to train ourselves to do what He would do.
Train the same way he did by studying, being open to discussion, kind, helpful
and honoring his parents on earth as well as the heavenly Father. We should be
standing up for the truth of the Word of God, not allowing others to
misuse it, but teaching the truth in love. We should desire to follow in His
steps.
A
couple of things we know about Jesus and what to do about them are;
Jesus
prayed—we should pray. He gave us an example of how to pray, what to pray for
and when to pray in various places in the Word of God.
5 “When you pray, don’t
be like the hypocrites who love to pray publicly on street corners and in the
synagogues where everyone can see them. I tell you the truth that is all the
reward they will ever get. 6 But when you pray, go
away by yourself, shut the door behind you, and pray to your Father in private.
Then your Father, who sees everything, will reward you.7 “When you pray, don’t
babble on and on as the Gentiles do. They think their prayers are answered
merely by repeating their words again and again. 8 Don’t be like them, for
your Father knows exactly what you need even before you ask him! Matthew 6:5-8
Jesus
wept—we can see its okay to weep. John 11:35 We can also see that He had sorrow over His
people just not getting it as fast as He wants.
Jesus
had righteous anger when people mistreated His Father’s house—we too should
protect our Father God’s house, and make sure people are treating it with
respect. We have a lackadaisical attitude about church buildings these days
because we know that God is in our hearts and lives, and not in the
building. But that does not mean we do not honor God in keeping the church
building up and treating it with respect. If it bothered Jesus that they made
the
Another
thought I had on this subject is that, in being like Christ, we need to be sure
the Light shines through us everywhere. We need to reflect His personality. He
knows our hearts. He knows our dreams and how we want, how we long, to be
like Him. When we do well for one another and speak kindly to those in our
home, as well as those outside the home, we are showing God’s love. We are
letting His light shine through us. So many times we don’t let our own families
see the good things God is doing in our lives. I think it is good to do this.
We need to take the time to listen to our children, listen to our spouses and
neighbors who come into our homes. Extended family that may be living with us
should be treated as one unit, not extra baggage. How else will we lead our
neighbors to Christ?
There
was a time that I thought Christians were snobs who stole their position
like baseball players. Not any more, because I know now that Christians are
broken people trying to heal. But I do not ever want someone to think that of
me. I do not want to seem as if I am too good to do anything,
like feed the poor in my neighborhood. Remember that we may be the only
Jesus some will ever see, including our families and neighbors. Let’s try hard
to be like Him.
Heavenly father, thank you for loving us and changing us from day
to day. Help us to be the people You see us as, not the broken and ignorant
people we are. Show us the wisdom in your Word that we may walk in your steps.
In Jesus’ name, amen.
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