Practice Righteousness not Ungodliness
Well, praise Jesus today, everyone. I just had a short message that I wanted to share, and it's about practicing righteousness and not practicing ungodliness. See, of course we get better at what we practice, and even if we are dedicated to the Lord Jesus, if we don't continue to practice our new tongue, if we don't practice speaking to others about the truth, then we will get out of practice, and we'll be more timid to share the truth, and then suddenly we'll find ourselves just thinking and saying worldly things, and we need to make sure that we're always in practice for what we really know is important.
The other day, I had a good friend come over, and he noticed that I had a large pile of wood that needed to be burned, and I plan to one day do it, but I don't just burn large piles every day, although I do it maybe a few times a season, but my friend, he has a business, and he is always doing burn piles, always brushing, always cleaning stuff up, and he quickly that day asked me if I wanted to light up that burn pile, and it was a burn day, so I said, sure, let's do it, and he jumped right on, you know, right on it, and we lit up that burn pile, and we cleaned up the area, and made the property look really good around my house, and that was really a blessing to me, it was a blessing from the Lord that that friend had that on his heart to do, but I thought to myself, he's doing this all the time, and he's excited to do it, he's excited to help a brother, he's in practice for things that are good, and we want to be in practice for things that are good, and not practicing things that are unrighteous, a lot of people have addictions, and they're practicing things that are ungodly, and because they have a habit of looking at pornography, or a habit of cursing, or a habit of taking the Lord's name in vain, or gossiping about others, they practice those things constantly, and instead of being a light to the world, and being helpful, and quick to do work that is righteousness, they are quick to do things that are evil, and perverted, and hateful, so if we are the children of the light, we need to be quick to do what is right, and we need to practice what is right, and of course we will get better at doing what is right, and we'll get better at resisting what is evil, see there are some Christians that think that once you put your faith in Jesus, you will no longer be tested, and you will automatically do what's right, that's not true, you will know right from wrong when you come to Jesus, but you have to practice good, and you have to refrain from evil, and as temptations continue to come at you, you will get better at resisting temptation when you choose to stand with Jesus, the more that you resist that temptation, the more you make a pattern of righteousness, but the more that you fall into temptation, the more you'll make the pattern of ungodliness, so we want to have patterns that encourage others to follow the Lord, that are edifying to ourselves, so we need to make patterns that each day when we wake up, we give our life to the Lord, we pray and say, Lord have your way with me, and let me be an encouragement to others, we need to make the pattern of guarding our hearts against evil, guarding our eyes and our ears, that we're not listening to music or watching things that are ungodly, and getting all the things out of our life that cause us to stumble, so the areas that cause us to stumble, and the things that cause us to do wickedness, and then we need to actively be pursuing righteousness, because it's not enough just to not be sinning, just to be avoiding things in the world that are ungodly, but Jesus calls us to bear good fruit, so how do we do that? Well in the morning we pray and we say, Lord make our lives fruitful for you, let me be a vessel of honor that can be used for you, and whoever I come into contact with, let me be salt and light that I can bear good fruit for you, that there may be more people that enter into the light of the truth, and there may be some days that the Lord has someone in your life, that then you can be a witness to, and then maybe other days there won't be anyone in that aspect, but in other aspects of your life you'll be able to grow, but in everything we need to live as unto the Lord, and practice righteousness, and not practice ungodliness. I see far too many people that are practicing ungodliness, and they think themselves to be Christians. I see people with shirts, and they're Christian shirts, and they have Bible verses on them, and these people are supposed to be Christians, they're supposed to be the children of God, but they're cursing, they're disrespectful to others, they don't have the light of the true God in them, they're not living the gospel, so practice what you preach, live for the Lord Jesus, and you will get better at what you do, you'll get better at encouraging others, you'll get better at resisting the devil, because whatever we practice we get better at, and as we make those habits we'll want to do those things more.
I've given the example before, if you have never run in your life, or if you've never jogged, you probably don't want to just go out and jog a mile. If you have run when you're say in junior high, and they had you do the mile, it was all that you could do in junior high to make that mile, and then maybe you haven't run another mile in 10-20 years, and it would be like pulling teeth to get you to jog a mile, but if you start yourself in an area where you can, maybe jogging a lap, and then working yourself up to that, and you're getting back in shape, then you will enjoy jogging a mile. So what we practice we get better at, and what we practice we start to enjoy, and then the things that we don't practice, we tend to put those things on the back burner, because we start to get a mental block against those things.
This is also a big reason why people procrastinate on the things that they know they should do. It's because they're out of practice for those things, and they continue to put those things on the back burner. When I was in college, I often was a procrastinator on my work, because I really wanted to think about other things, and so if I had some kind of assignment, essay due, or test, I would often put it off until the very last night in order to do it, and then I would be so rushed to get that done, and it's because I was out of practice for studying, and that's a really bad thing guys, as if you're in college, or if you're in the workplace, and you're expected to get things done on a schedule, you should be quick to do what's right.
You shouldn't be a procrastinator, and now that I follow Jesus, I want to do everything as under the Lord. So even things like if it's a test that I'm going to turn in, if it's something for school, I want to be there on time, I want to be prepared, because I want to live as under the Lord, and be well practiced up, so that I have a performance that demonstrates the King that I am performing for. If we are Christians, we're not performing for the world, we're not just performing for a worldly boss, but we are doing our performance for the Lord Jesus, if in fact He is your King and your Lord.
You should be doing everything as unto the Lord. So don't be a procrastinator on doing what you need to do, don't be a procrastinator on doing what is right. Of course be slow to anger, but be quick to forgive, be quick to reconcile with a brother or sister that you need reconciliation with, be quick to repent of the things that you need to repent from, but don't put these things on the back burner, because far too many Christians have these mental blocks, and then they can't push through and do the things that they need to do, so instead they're trying to just appease themselves, or appease a guilty conscience, with doing worldly good works.
So we need to make sure that we actually are getting our life in order before the Lord, living holy and pure, and practicing righteousness. So that's all I have for today, I want to encourage those of you that do want to practice righteousness, so I want to pray for those of you that want to put your faith in Jesus, and live for Him, and not practice the things of the world. "Lord Jesus, I pray for my fellow brothers and sisters who are listening today, that want to practice righteousness, and who want to put off ungodliness. We want to be dedicated to your truth, we want to be filled with your Holy Spirit, and not with the thoughts of the world, or the desires of the flesh. So fill us with your righteousness, and with your truth, let us feast on your words, let us have the words of life in us, and let us meditate on your truth, and on your righteousness. May we resist evil, may we resist temptation, and continue to overcome in your name. Amen."
Well praise Jesus everyone, I see your comments coming in. Yeah praise Jesus, it's always good to be thankful. We've been getting some rain here in California, which I'm very thankful for. It's good to start the day right, and be praising the Lord, worshiping Him, and encouraging others to also follow and obey the Lord. I think we'll end this live stream here this morning, but continue to resist evil, and do good before Jesus.
He loves us, He cares for us, but He wants us to live the holy life. So let us keep our eyes on the prize, which is Jesus Christ, and keep enduring on the straight and narrow path. Yes we have to pray continually, pray continually without ceasing. If you pray and ask Jesus to fill you with His Holy Spirit, and to give you His new tongue, He will teach you how to pray without ceasing, like it says in the scripture. We want to always have the heart and mind of the Lord, and praying in His will. Alright that's it for today guys. Go in the Spirit of the Lord Jesus, honor Him, and please Him with your life, and be a light for Him.
