Exodus 16–17 records the story of an impatient people who longed for the familiarity of captivity. Pastor Chuck Swindoll explores the Israelites’ complaints in the wilderness. They couldn’t grasp God’s history of providing for them and lived solely by their feelings.
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Read Colossians 3:17, 23
My high school graduating class had its thirtieth anniversary reunion many summers ago. Since I could not attend, I decided to blow the dust off my yearbook and stroll down nostalgia lane. I remembered a project we seniors were given before the yearbook went to press back in ’52. We were asked to think about the next twenty years and answer, “What do I want to do?” The plan was to record our dreams and goals in the yearbook, then evaluate them at each subsequent reunion. Some of the goals are not fitting to repeat, but some are both interesting and revealing:
“Win all-American honours and play professional football.”
“Finish medical school and have a practice in Honolulu.”
“Make a living writing short stories, plays, and novels.”
“Travel abroad as a news correspondent.”
“Live fast, die young, and leave a good-looking corpse.”
All sorts of goals. Some admirable, some questionable, some crazy, a few stupid. The more I’ve thought back to that end-of-the-chapter high school project, the more I believe we were asked to answer the wrong question. What we want to do is not nearly as important as what we ought to be. And the longer I live the more significant that becomes. It’s possible to do lots of things yet be zilch as a person.
Remember these familiar words penned by the apostle Paul?
Whatever you do or say, do it as a representative of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through him to God the Father....Work willingly at whatever you do, as though you were working for the Lord rather than for people. (Colossians 3:17, 23)
We’re wise to take our life direction from the Lord rather than our high school classmates. How we do what we do matters so much more to the Lord than what we do.
Are you focusing on being the kind of representative Jesus calls you to be? Or are you caught in the trap of doing what other people expect? The latter will wear you out! The former will bring you genuine fulfilment. Go there.
Devotional content taken from Good Morning, Lord...Can We Talk? by Charles R. Swindoll. Copyright © 2018. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, a division of Tyndale House Ministries. All rights reserved.
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Jesus...What a Gift!
When God took on human flesh at the birth of Jesus, He brought a wonder to the world that had yet to be seen. Dramatic acts of judgment and rescue that we find recorded in the Old Testament did not compare to the union of humanity and deity in the child, Jesus. Let’s take a closer look at this awesome gift of God to the human race.
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