By: Nadine Judge
May I ask in this moment how many of you have made and kept your new year’s resolutions?
Who decided this year they are going to find a new job that gives them more of what they need? Or who has decided a new eating plan is going to make its way into the household. Or who is looking to join a gym or join a cycling club or hiking club or some such thing? Without realising it and calling it a new year’s resolution, we all somehow decide that this year will be different to last year.
Francis Schaeffer Wrote a book and the title of the book was, “How should we then live”– an excellent book by the way. In thinking and asking the Lord about this, Matthew 6:20 came to mind, “But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal.”
Now this might be simplistic, but I really don’t think we need to over complicate them. What can moth and vermin and thieves not destroy? My relationship with God and with His people.
I have two things I believe are more important to get right if we are to live with a “rest of my life” resolution. May I be as bold as to say, if you could get these two things right, so many other aspects of life would also “come right”.
Develop your relationship with the Trinity.
How many times have we heard something like this?
Folks, as I was saying to someone recently, our relationship with the Trinity (God the Father, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit) is like the umbrella for all the other areas of our lives.
- Spend time in the Word. There are so many voices now coming at us that if we don’t spend time in the Word, we can easily start believing some of those other things being said. Let me ask you, where in the Bible does it say, “Cleanliness is next to Godliness”? Nowhere! There is a principle about being clean – but as it stands, nowhere does the phrase “cleanliness is next to godliness” appear. Folks, read the Word.
2 Timothy 3:16 17 “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.”
- Spend time in prayer. If Jesus thought spending time in prayer was important, then surely you must as well?
Look at this, Mark 1: 35, “Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where he prayed.”
And, Luke 5:15-16, “Yet the news about him spread all the more, so that crowds of people came to hear him and to be healed of their sicknesses. But Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed.”
Folks, these are but a few verses, but I am sure you can see the pattern. Jesus prayed, and when he prayed, God answered him. Therefore, Jesus could say: “For I did not speak on my own, but the Father who sent me commanded me to say all that I have spoken” (John 12:49).
Note that when Jesus spent time in prayer, he had clarity of the way he should go, who he should go with, and he had the strength for every day.
- Involve the Holy Spirit in your everyday life. He is here to help us, guide us, strengthen us and he loves being with us. And when we don’t know what and how to pray, he helps us and intercedes for us. Romans 8:26, “in the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans.”
Meet Together
Heb 10:24-25, “And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching”.
Folks, let us look at some keywords here:
- Spur one another on toward love and good deed.
- Encourage one another.
But how? By not giving up meeting together!
It’s rather scary that online church has made it easier to watch church – and I deliberately use the word “watch” as it is easier to become distracted when “watching” as opposed to being at the “live” meeting.
But Scripture compels us to dig deeper than convenience, comfort or whether the preacher was on fire and the worship team in tune.
To neglect or forsake meeting together as the church with other believers is to turn from God’s design for His Church and embrace a false substitute: the notion that Christianity is individualistic, rather than familial or communal.
Church is not an event to consume spiritual content. Gathering is an essential means of grace whereby believers’ worship and are equipped to live as God’s witness in this world.
Remember Hebrews 10: 24-25, “spur one another on toward love and good deeds and encourage one another.”
“To grow spiritually, we need to be relationally present and engaged in each other’s lives” (Steve Massey, Pastor at Hayden Bible Church).
Conclusion
If we are to live with Matthew 6:20 in mind, “But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal.” We need to make decisions that reflect that. I cannot take my healthy body into eternity with me – though I am asked to look after it. I cannot take my money or my possessions into eternity with me – though I am asked to steward these things wisely.
Ed Stetzer put this so well: “our perspective of the future impacts our decisions in the present.”
If you want to live “storing up treasure in heaven”, you need to give God your all, and to do this, you might need to re-evaluate some of your priorities.
Be encouraged to focus on these 2 things:
- Spend time with the Trinity – which includes spending time in the Word.
- Don’t neglect being together – we grow spiritually when we spend time together. Remember, people are the only commodity that lasts beyond the grave.
Have a wonderful year putting those things in place that will last for eternity.